Still Star-Crossed
by Lapis Love
Summary: Meeting a stranger shouldn't send life as he knows it off its axis. His first thought, she looks sad. Second thought, she's pretty. By his third he wants to know everything about her. And on his fourth thought, he wishes they never crossed paths. AU Bamon. [Not based or inspired by the ABC show of the same name]
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is AU. Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: Not my characters. They belong to their respective owners who wouldn't allow them to be great. The plot is mine.**

* * *

 _He was searching for a beautiful death. Death could be too many things. It could be let of its leash to slaughter enemies, opposition. It was the period mark to a life long or short-lived. And it could also be meaningless, the impulse of desire and greed, a mistake caused by negligence, ex or internal. Quick and painless was a cheat, applying torture beforehand was laborious. Death needed its own veneration._

 _And from where he stood the world had forgotten that…_

His pen hovered above the page. What should he write next?

Thump. His head jerked upwards at the sound. The empty table by the window was no longer empty. A woman sat there now. A pretty woman with toffee brown skin, black hair that touched her shoulders, and a mouth that wasn't quite centered. He noticed these things about people, the little details that made up a whole. Being something of a non-deviant voyeur, it was a practice he had no desire to part from.

Her widow's peak hairline was dotted with beads of sweat as was the center of her chest. He watched her breathe slowly, methodically. In and then out. Such a docile lifeform. She turned her head to look out the window and he finally availed himself of the fact it was drizzling outside. He stood corrected. That wasn't sweat on her skin but rain.

He resumed trying to climb into the head of his main character, yet couldn't help but steal peeks at the woman.

She was blocked from his sight. A waitress had arrived at her table to take her order.

"Coffee. Black," he heard the woman say succinct but not harried.

"Anything else?"

"A chocolate almond sconce, please. Thank you."

"I'll be right back with your order."

When the waitress slid away he was staring straight into a pair of viridian irises. Caught, he knew not where to look but at her. He was mistaken. She wasn't docile but very much alive, perhaps even _too_ alive. She was a torch. Thrown and shaken he managed to offer a smile that was reciprocated, more reserved and shyly before disappearing quickly.

She reached for a napkin out of the dispenser and blotted her forehead and chest. With the lady distracted, the man drank his fill of her. She wore a tan trench coat. It was a bit warm for a coat, the overcast sky and rain notwithstanding. Sheer, black hosiery covered her legs, runner's legs—he amended. Well-formed calves that dipped to delicate ankles and ankles that led to small feet housed in a pair of dark navy pumps with super skinny heels made of metal. Fascinating, he had not quite seen a pair of footwear like that that.

The woman pulled her hair away from her face revealing a tattoo on her neck. An intricate B, about the size of a dime, was inked into her flesh right beneath the lobe of her right ear. He couldn't help but wonder if it were her initial or stood for something else.

He was caught staring again and felt the blood rush to his cheeks and the tips of his ears.

The woman knew precisely what he had been gawking at.

He figured he should say something to ease the awkward tension. "Nice tattoo."

"I regret it but not the tattoo artist."

His mind only interpreted that statement one way.

Annoyed because he knew his cheeks were a bright cherry red, he swiped his drink and chugged on the straw sucking sour lemonade down his throat. He was saved from further embarrassment as the woman was brought her beverage and tasty dessert.

"You're blushing," she said the moment the waitress left to check on her other customers.

"Sorry," he forced a cough.

"What were you thinking?"

"Nothing I want to share."

She laughed then. A throaty sound that made his ears and cock twitch.

Feeling a subject change was in order before his thoughts went somewhere he was in too public a place for it to go, he inquired, "Taking a break from the office?"

The woman stirred sugar into her coffee. She seemingly hadn't heard his question as she appeared to be completely absorbed in the task at hand. Feeling inept, he was ready to pretend he hadn't said anything.

"I actually just got off from work," she replied and licked the rim of the spoon.

The man swallowed having followed the trail of her pink tongue coursing along the eating utensil. "O-oh," he stuttered, "you work the late shift?"

"I work a shift that never ends."

He didn't want to generalize or jump to conclusions, and doubted questioning her any farther on her occupation would be appropriate. But his curiosity burned, nonetheless. Burned with an endless pursuit of knowledge or for the meaning in something mundane. He watched for a minute longer, checked the time to see how much he had left before he needed to return home.

"You're not going to ask how could I be off from work if my shift supposedly never ends?"

"I don't want to pry."

Her gaze dipped to the legions of papers scattered on his table. "If I didn't want you to pry, I would have told you to fuck off the first time I caught you staring."

He was floored by her brashness but found it…refreshing in a sense. People loved trading pleasantries when most of the time they honestly did not care if anyone was having a good day or not, or if they were making a good impression. He watched her nibble the sconce and lick the crumbs away. Witnessing it strangely emboldened him to be, well, bold.

He capped his pen, "So how is it that you're off from working a shift that never ends?"

She smiled then. Nothing to it but a quirk of the lips that made her cheeks fuller. "Most would consider what they do a twenty-four hour job. I'm not any different. Except…what I do, I can't really talk about," her voice dipped conspiratorially. "But, I'll say this..."

The ding of the bell that chimed each time the door opened interrupted what she had been preparing to say.

"Nah, I think I'll keep that to myself."

"Just like that?"

She nodded slowly, "Just like that. What are you working on?"

He cleared his throat, brought his attention to the mountain of papers strewn across the table. "Ah, just messing around with a story. It's not a big deal."

"You're a writer?"

"Trying to be."

"You're doing it old school, handwritten."

"I prefer to write over typing."

"What's your story about?"

He paused wondering if he should tell her about the thoughts that had been swarming in his head lately that had him pacing the floors of his apartment at odd hours of the night. Would she think he was corny or needed therapy if he were to explain he was writing about those mythological immortal creatures that drank blood? Hadn't the world been inundated enough with stories about vampires? In his opinion he didn't believe he was writing about vampires, but a man's desire to court death. His character had a vice and the vice was admiring pretty necks.

"A love story," was what he went with.

"I love love stories. What's yours about?"

Nervously he scratched the back of his neck. This woman was asking him to expose a side of him he wasn't completely comfortable with showing. Looking at her earnest expression, seeing she wasn't secretly laughing at him, made his shoulders relax. "I'm not really sure. I'm not an expert on love but to write about it well, I think you need to experience it at least once."

"Maybe that's what you should write about," she suggested and sipped her coffee. "Write about a love that shouldn't exist between two people but it does and they do what they can to protect it."

Intrigued, he arched his brows, "Protect it from what?"

"From their need to self-sabotage."

"Don't you think that idea has been done to death?"

"No, because I believe no two loves are the same."

"Do you have a lot of experience with love?"

The woman sighed and if he weren't mistaken her hands shook a little. "I do."

"Are you in love right now?"

He stared at the woman expectantly, but her waitress interrupted, checking to see if she needed anything. He averted his gaze and when the waitress disappeared and he felt it was safe, he looked up. _She_ was gone. Surprised by her abrupt disappearance he first looked in the direction of the bathroom but saw no sign of her. Just as he snapped his head toward the entrance of the restaurant, he caught a glimpse of her standing still, holding his gaze before vanishing around the corner.

He had a decision to make. Let the encounter fade or pursue. He should pursue as a good citizen because the woman left without paying her bill—he stood corrected seeing several dollar bills tucked beneath the saucer, thin curls of steam still rose from her unfinished cup of coffee.

Grabbing his coat, hurriedly stuffing papers into his satchel, he left a tip with jittery hands and took off, nearly bumping into an inbound customer.

"Sorry," he threw out distractedly.

The humid air struck him in the face. Sights of the city caught up with him, blasting his ears, making him wince. He didn't really know what he was doing besides making a fool of himself. She had to be long gone by now, and if he did manage to catch up with her, what would he say? He'd cross that bridge when he got to it. If he did.

The man checked north—nothing, he turned south and yes! There! He saw her waiting at the end of the block for the light to turn green. He took off, not too fast as to draw attention to his approach, but fast enough to reach her.

He cursed as the light changed and he was still half a distance away. He thought about calling out to her, but what if she thought he was one of those guys who couldn't take a hint that a woman wasn't interested, or misconstrued their quick conversation into thinking they made a love connection? Already embarrassment spread to his cheeks which he ignored as his loafers pounded the dirty pavement.

He dashed across the street just as the light began to turn yellow. It seemed while he ran like an Olympian to reach her, the woman strolled with careless abandon. Even footfalls, hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket at a pace that suggested she was in no rush to get anywhere important. She melted and reappeared in the minimal traffic that crowded the sidewalks. He was gaining on her, getting close enough to pick up whiffs of her perfume. A fragrance that took him back to lazy afternoons tanning on a white sandy beach.

"Excuse me!" he called out when he was close enough to be heard.

The woman turned her head but not enough to see him, and just as quickly she was looking forward again. Her gait changed and she was walking with more determination.

"Wait, miss!"

He tripped over a discarded bag, cursed, and when he looked up he lost sight of her. No, wait he saw her turn down another corner. He rushed off this time breaking into a full run and came to a sliding stop.

There was nothing down this street. No businesses, clothing stores, restaurants, nothing but an alley that led to nowhere special from the look of things. This couldn't be right. He stepped back into the middle of the sidewalk that was now devoid of people. Where had everyone gone? Brow furrowing, the man licked his lips. Should he just cut his losses? He did have a conference call he was probably going to be late for it if he wasn't already. Just as he made the decision to go back, he saw her standing at the far end of the alley.

He didn't move. His legs were weighted by concrete suddenly. His self-confidence waned like elasticity in a rubber band stretched one too many times. Defeat and stupidity were beginning to beat him up. He did all of this chasing with no guarantee she'd agree to exchange phone numbers or have dinner with him. But, she was seemingly waiting for him.

Clearing his throat, he began to amble down the alley. The worst she could say was no. Being no stranger to that word, he'd survive, live to see another day, continue on with his work. No harm, no foul.

He blinked and once again she evaporated into thin air. "What the hell…"

Don't you know you shouldn't travel down dark alleys, alone?

Glass cracked beneath his foot but that wasn't concerning. It was the fact the fine hair on the back of his neck began to lift, rise as goose bumps rippled across his skin.

"The fuck!" the man roared the second something heavy landed on his shoulders, knocking him temporarily off balance. His satchel and coat fell from his hands that he immediately raised to push whatever landed on top of him off.

It took a second for him to realize those were legs wrapped tightly around his shoulders. He tripped backwards, back ramming into brick hoping to dislodge whoever the hell decided his shoulders was the perfect place to rest. He couldn't shake her, and it was a woman, the stockings being a dead giveaway. And something was very familiar about those legs.

Something silver flashed in his line of sight and before he could comprehend, a wire was wrapped around his throat. This bitch was trying to garrote him.

Crouched awkwardly on the man, Bonnie Bennett crooned, "Let me see your true face, lover."

The man deliberately dove, head first to the pavement. Bonnie tucked herself as best she could, rolling once her back smashed into the concrete. The wind was knocked out of her. She lost a shoe, ripped a hole in her stockings but for the most part she was okay. It took two seconds before she flipped up to her feet, wobbling a little. Her skull and shoulder pounded and ached, but she ignored the pain refusing to even smart or wince.

The man was slower to rise, pressing one splayed hand against the asphalt, the other balled into a fist. He rose to his knees, craned his head, glared at her. He unfurled the wire from his neck. Wiped at the blood trickling down from a cut along his hairline.

"What the hell are you doing?" he wheezed.

Instead of answering, Bonnie removed a stake from her coat pocket. Taking the tip she ran it along her throat, watching him watch the stake. She nicked below her clavicle. A drop of warm blood pebbled and dripped from the superficial wound.

The man's nostril's flared as his chest rose and fell. Walls felt like they were closing in on him. He couldn't explain why it seemed the bones in his face were shifting, remolding themselves. Into what? He had no idea. Additionally, his eyes burned and a very dry and agonizing thirst charred his mouth. This had to be adrenaline.

"I don't know what the hell—"

"Damon Salvatore…" confusion lit the man's face, "Born in 1839 to Giuseppe and Lillian Salvatore, brother to Stefan Salvatore, native of Mystic Falls, Virginia," Bonnie rattled off. " _Turned_ in 1864 by Katherine Pierce aka Katerina Petrova."

He blinked rapidly. Turned? What did she mean by that? "What do you mean turned?"

"What do you think it means, Damon?"

Grasping at straws, he had no idea what alternative world he or this woman tripped into. But he was going to clear up this case of obvious mistaken identity _right now_. "I don't know…" he smacked his suddenly dry lips together, "I don't know what kind of drugs you're taking but I don't know this Damon. My name's not Damon."

"You're wrong about that but right about something else. You don't know who you are because they made you forget. That's okay because I'm here to help you remember."

"By trying to kill me?" he shouted but waved his hands around dismissing the question. "It doesn't matter. You're a sick bitch. Stay the fuck away from me," he collected his satchel and coat, grimacing at the stains on his jacket.

"Damon, I can't let you leave."

He rounded on her, "My name's not fucking Damon! And I sure as hell wasn't born in fucking 1839."

For a second she saw his sclera become vein-filled. He pierced his lids closed, shook his head. When their eyes met, his glacial blues spat so much fire Bonnie was surprised she wasn't sizzling.

Bonnie tilted her chin down a little, "I know I've given you no reason to trust me, but I had to get your attention."

"For what?" he didn't even know why he was still entertaining this psycho, and why he hadn't whipped out his phone to call the cops. Then again beautiful women always messed with his mind and common sense.

"To tell you the truth. To get you to stop and really think about the last eleven months of your life. What do you remember?"

His jaw ticked yet he said nothing. He turned to leave.

Every fiber of Bonnie's being roared that she couldn't let him walk away. Months of searching, dead ends, leads that led to skirmishes, skirmishes that led to death. Finding him, waiting for the right time to approach had flayed her nerves raw to the point Bonnie had been numb when she walked through the doors of that café. She couldn't let him leave her behind. Not again. Now was her chance. _Their_ chance. No, she wouldn't let him out of her sight. Besides, that was not who they were. That was not their creed. In a sense they were orphans beating their fists against anything that crept out of the shadows threatening to abduct one of them away from the other. All that history, pain, _love_ was lost to Damon. Who he really was, _what_ he really was he had no clue. Half an hour ago she could have been a conquest to warm his bed. Or someone to share the occasional cup of coffee with as they tripped through the infatuation stage, terrified and giddy on where things could go.

Bonnie hobbled forward, grabbed his hand and placed it on her chest. She felt him flinch when she touched him. He faced her, scowled.

"It would take you next to nothing to punch your fist through my chest and take out my heart."

Horror made sweat bead on his upper lip. He tried to pry his hand from her clasp.

"You've done it before…it was less messy then."

He wagged his head, "You're not making sense. I'm not trying to make light of this, but did you escape an institution?"

"Feel what you are!" Bonnie yelled impatiently. "You can hear my heart beating. You can feel the blood rushing through my veins. Feel. It."

Damon smiled but it was a smile that basically told Bonnie how crazy he thought she was. "You need you to let me go now."

"I can't do that."

"Why!" He was beyond irritated.

"You're my husband!"

* * *

 **13 Months ago, the last night they were together**

* * *

He held her tightly for the first time in months, but it would be for the last time. Did she know? he wondered as he slowly rubbed her back, gripped her quivering shoulders as he clasped her nude and wet body to him. They stood motionless and quiet in the shower, being pelted but neither really felt the water hit and warm their skin. They were as close as two people could get, but it still wasn't close enough. With her cheek tucked into his chest, her soft sobs in his ears, tears pooled in his eyes, its salt coursing down his cheeks, dripping into her hair.

He loved her but he couldn't do this anymore. Couldn't do them, though admitted they hadn't been _them_ in the last year. It was an inescapable truth mired in facts. Love, some would say never had an expiration date. Others believed it had a set deadline, a date where it would dissipate and there'd be nothing one could do to keep from losing it. Damon Salvatore knew with all his heart that he loved Bonnie Bennett, but he was tired of being the only one to believe that.

She was losing him. She knew that. Felt it each time he came home a little later than the night before. Saw it in how, whenever she entered a room, his smile no longer lit up his face the way it used to. Sensed it in his tone. He spoke to her but he sounded dead. There was no life, no animation, and no one needed to tell her she was the catalyst. She wanted to reverse it, make it stop, start over. She just had no idea how. Changing stirred anxiety, anxiety made her paranoid, and her paranoia made her unreasonable.

More tears at the knowledge of her shortcomings, her mental prison, her physical hell gushed from her closed eyes.

"We should get out," Damon said.

"Five more minutes," Bonnie bartered and hugged him closer.

The feel of her petite body was familiar, conjured a thousand and one memories, most of them good, plenty more spectacular. He reveled in it though it hurt. He inadvertently hurt her as she consciously hurt him. Neither had been strong enough to walk away, but he found a sliver of it—courage and Damon was going to use it. They had tapped danced around the emptiness of their marriage long enough. Someone just had to be brave and bold to call it quits, to pull that trigger.

 _Looks like I'm it_ , he thought and kissed her forehead. "Five more minutes," he agreed.

Bonnie would take those five minutes and turn it into five years. She could be the vivacious woman Damon met and married. She could get her confidence back, believe in herself and her capabilities, contribute to their home, stop resenting him because he got to leave the house every day and do something he loved. She would start working on her music, maybe even teach again. It wasn't too late.

With a shuddering sigh, she pulled back, blinked up at her husband, the love of her life.

Slowly his lids parted revealing a soul as beautiful and tortured, resilient yet broken as hers. Her chest rose and fell as she allowed Damon to really look at her because for months she had been dodging, concealing her love letting negativity override the most important thing they shared: friendship. She looked into the eyes of her best friend and couldn't really figure out if he recognized her. Recognized who she wanted to be so badly. Bonnie wondered if all he could see was everything he hated. The whiny nag, the woman who refused him, shut him out because she felt useless, undesirable.

 _Please see that I'm trying, Damon._

Damon brushed her cheeks with his thumbs as he roamed her features, trying in earnest to get his last fill, remember every detail he could. Lonely nights would hit and he'd need the picture of her to get him through. He wanted to remember Bonnie like this before inevitably crushing everything.

Bonnie clung to him, fighting against the words that had been climbing up her throat for months that she painfully swallowed down. She was tired of the strain, the fight, tired of ignoring the inevitable. Her heart beat frantically, abnormally. She had to say it. Had to know how bad things were. How close things were to the end. Bonnie couldn't live in the dark any longer. She needed her husband to tell her the truth.

Bonnie tilted her chin up, inhaled, and pushed out, "You're leaving me…aren't you?"

* * *

 **13 Months later, present time**

* * *

Bonnie knew she had gone too far, said too much too soon.

He yanked his hand off her chest and backed himself into an invisible corner. This woman had some major screws loose. He didn't have a wife nor had he ever been married. He had never seen this woman until today. Was this some sort of human trafficking scam? He searched both ends of the alley for a white van with tinted windows.

"You come near me again…I'll have you arrested. Just stay away."

He fled like Eurydice was sucked back into the underworld.

Bonnie stood where she was, planted as if she were the roots of a palm tree. Bend with the wind but never break. Bonnie understood that's exactly how she had to be. Her insides though were crackled sugar glass.

A wind blew. Strands of her hair danced and tickled her cheeks. Coldness—the deathly kind slithered beside her.

"I see things went swimmingly, little lamb."

"You have to follow him," Bonnie glanced at Damon's younger and troubled brother, Stefan.

"My place, it seems is to forever trail at the hem of his shadow. Lucky me," he snorted and swung in front of Bonnie.

She tensed. He sensed it and smiled.

Physically he was not the Stefan that she knew. This Stefan before her, his skin was moon pale, his eyes too animated with an eerie circle of mercury right around the pupil. The blue veins around his jawline and beneath his lower lashes were precursors of what had been done to him.

"You cry for my brother," he thumbed her thudding pulse.

"We both want him back, Stefan," Bonnie reminded and maneuvered her neck out of his reach.

He said nothing to that. Tipped his imaginary hat and proceeded to follow his brother's scent. When he was some distance away from Bonnie, a corner of his blood red lips ticked up, "Do we?"

 **A/N: Do I know where I'm hoping to go with this if I am persuaded to continue, vaguely. Do I hope you guys feel something while reading, naturally. Has it been hard af to write post series, yes. Do I want to let Bamon go, never. Some questions: who made Damon forget? Why? What's up with Stefan? What was going on in Bamon's marriage? I hope to hear from you guys. Thank you so much for reading!**


	2. Damon who?

**A/N: This chapter was a pain. It feels all over the place but I hope it makes some sense. It begins in 2** **nd** **person/present tense since we're in Damon's head who doesn't remember he's Damon. But the rest is narrated in 3** **rd** **person. Just FYI. Thank you guys so much for reading, reviewing, and showing this discombobulated baby some love!**

* * *

 **Damon, or…?**

* * *

 _Once upon a time a beautiful and naïve witch met and fell in love with a tetchy yet debonair vampire. There was nothing particularly special about the vampire. He didn't fly, or turn into a bat, or spoke a hundred languages. He was well-off and money could help with a lot of things. It wasn't his coin that enticed her so much since she had her own. Neither knew at the time how connected they were meant to be._

 _His entry into her life probably wasn't as accidental as he tried to make it seem. A vampire did his best to make a meal out of [her], but [he] showed up and snapped his neck. He waited for her to collapse in his arms as a show of thanks and gratitude, but nothing of the sort happened. What did happen was fire and needles ravaging the inside of his skull. He fell to his knees, gripping his head hoping to stave the torment, but [she] drew closer, kissed his lips and said, "Rest in peace my one true love," and sent him off to hell._

Someone coughs, a baby wails, people yip about absolutely nothing. These distractions are going to cost you. Already like leaves in the wind those sentences are scattering, but you hold on tightly to each word that springs forward. You have to. Especially now. Stress levels being what they are. Throat parched, you're on high alert. If that woman followed…well you aren't sure what you'll do. That's the main reason why taking an alternative route home, which would consequently add another half hour to the commute is crucial. Safety's more important than rushing to an empty home.

Your head, neck, and shoulders hurt like shit, but you ignore that pain. It'll be gone long before you reach home anyways. Home. So long as you know who you are, you'll never be lost.

My name is Archer Holden. My name is Archer Holden, you repeat like a prayer. I was born…the year I was born was…my parents are…my name is Archer Holden and I'm a writer.

With jittery hands you fumble for your wallet pulling it out. You stare at your driver's license. Next to the thumbnail picture are brief stats. Name: Archer Ian Holden. Address: 11205 Decatur Ave, Cypher Hills, California. DOB: June 21, 1988. Sex: Male. Height: 5'11". Weight: 185 lbs. Without these succinct descriptions who are you beyond them?

You have a sister, January who smokes like a chimney, and dates one loser after another. She also has the disgusting habit of talking with her mouth full, and doesn't believe in replenishing your liquor supply after stealing your best shit to throw her little basement parties. You have a best friend Oscar who dispenses advice pulled straight from his ass, cryptic as hell but surprisingly comes in handy in a cinch. You like classical music and believe Jack London was a god.

You study the photograph and test the name Damon Salvatore on your tongue. It doesn't taste right but it doesn't taste bad either. Actually, it's a pretty kick ass name, you think feeling a smirk wanting to emerge. The surname is Italian and well, you cock your head, you don't think you look traditionally Italian. You roll yours eyes because what does that even mean? Pulling out your phone you look up the meaning of the name Damon. Your face and mood sour even more. In laymen's terms it means demon in Greek. For the hell of it you search Salvatore and really snort at the irony. Savior. So essentially the name was demon savior.

Huffing, you put your wallet and phone away.

It doesn't matter what that woman said; the broad was crazy and quite possibly trying to run a scam. Perhaps she took the prophetic words of Joanne the Scammer too literally. Professing you're her husband? You can't figure out the hows and the whys or the logic, and it would be in your best interest to forget the whole episode. Chalk it up to one of those weird California occurrences where people believe they're actors, and every encounter is a stage on which to perform. You're not Damon (a demon) or Salvatore (a savior). You are Archer.

You close your eyes.

" _It would take you next to nothing to punch your fist through my chest and take out my heart."_

They spring open, frantic. You check the seats behind, in front of, and across from you. You're met with the same handful of passengers you spied while boarding, but it feels like she was sitting right next to you.

" _Turned in 1864 by Katherine Pierce aka Katerina Petrova."_

You groan lowly while pressing your fingers into your temples to get the playback to stop.

" _What do you remember?"_

That you missed your conference call with a possible book agent.

" _Feel what you are!"_

You feel the tight pulling of crusted blood on your forehead each time you massage your temples, a reminder of the back alley brawl. You feel the fluid swaying of the subway. That's all real to you. Concrete.

" _You're my husband!"_

Bile tickles the back of your throat. If that were true why can't you remember her? Why would you pretend to be someone else?

" _What do you remember?"_

Just think, Archer, you counsel yourself willing to overlook how stupid this is because that woman's a stranger, and her words should have no bearing on you whatsoever. She attacked without provocation. She made you ruin your jacket on top of costing an opportunity to finally do something more with your life than dream about being a best-selling author. What you should do is find her and wring her pretty little neck!

Instead of fantasizing about the many ways to torment the little bitch, you think backwards, counting off the months. What, substantially, can you recall of your life prior to driving an open Jeep along the hilly coast of Cypher Hills? Maybe why you can't remember is because your life was so shitty there's no point. You bear no physical scars, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. The world's a cold and cruel place and sometimes it's best to leave the past—whatever it may be—in the fucking past.

Yet you can't deny your curiosity has been piqued, whetted though. You just can't help that about you at all. Dick.

You look down at your left hand, at that ring finger and try to image a wedding band being there. Your finger twitches and keeps on twitching and its not until you ball your hand into a fist does it stop.

The metro train's brakes screams which hurts your ears. You're at your station. You get off, keeping your head low while covertly looking around. Five minutes later you stick the key in the lock of your apartment that offers a view conducive to writing. The bustling city on one side and the roaring Pacific on the other. You're home. You're safe.

You make a beeline for the kitchen and hit the start button on the coffee machine to get the brew growing. Stick to your routine. You actually have material to use tonight.

…

As vigilant as he tried to be he wasn't vigilant enough. Someone had shadowed him home.

…

Brothers being at odds was nothing new or a rare occurrence. Even mythological gods had family squabbles that unfortunately trickled down to mankind leading to chaos and death. If he thought long and hard about it, their origins, their history was no different. They had a father like Cronus paranoid his children would kill and overthrow him; only Giuseppe's preoccupation had been vampires. His sons did turn out to be sympathizers and he was subsequently killed by the fruit of this loins. The memory made a demented smile spread across Stefan Salvatore's face.

Rivalry was common, expected. Even with the way things were now, they were competing. Unfortunately Damon wasn't aware of it.

That would be changing soon.

Transfigured into an eight legged arachnoid, Stefan slipped into his brother's apartment complex and raced up the stairwell to the third floor.

Easily crawling through the tight space separating the bottom of the door from the floor, he scuttled between Damon's size ten and a half loafers he toed off as he disrobed. There was always that brief moment where fear seized Stefan that Damon might suddenly look down, see him and squash him, but it never happened. Yet. He had given one of Damon's neighbors a fright when he left in spider form at the same time she was exiting her apartment. The memory made him chuckle.

A piece of cloth, more than likely Damon's shirt, landed right on top of Stefan who cursed and had to fight his way through the labyrinth of fabric. Before he made it out, the shirt was yanked off of him and he thought for sure he'd go sailing through the air, but he didn't. He balled himself up next to the leg of an end table hoping to avoid detection. When the coast was clear Stefan scaled the wall to set himself up in his usual corner. If Damon cared to look he'd see a peculiar looking web. Stefan went about making repairs to the Joker-esque smile he spun a couple of weeks ago.

Damon emerged from the bathroom an hour later and the coffee he brewed was nice and hot. Pouring three cups, he added bourbon to two, collected all three mugs and settled at his desk.

Stefan diligently watched as his brother gulped down the first cup, picked up his pen and retrieved a fresh sheet of paper. And it wasn't any ordinary paper he wrote on, but only the best weaved paper imported from Malaysia. Stefan actually liked the sound of a pen scratching against paper for it took him back to those days he immortalized his life in a journal. He could smell the metallic fragrance of the ink as it bled from the tip of the pen and sunk into the fibers of the paper, trapping his thoughts until he inevitably scratched them out and began again. From here he could even read a little of what Damon was writing. The same thing he wrote about night after night.

His heroine.

He could never get her right.

From the milkiest of whites to the deepest of ebony, her complexion changed according to his mood and the narrative; but two of her attributes were never altered, her hair and eye color. She'd always have green eyes and dark hair. Damon struggled to give her a name. Nothing felt right, sounded right in his head or when he spoke the name to himself. He tried everything from Aaliyah to Zelda. Each name left him feeling frustrated and impotent because how could he get to know her, tell her story if he didn't know her name?

This Stefan found amusing. How Damon grappled with his new life as the old tried to push its way through like a determined weed invincible to spray.

Tonight, Damon sat poised waiting for the words to come, for feeling to flow and dictate. He sat for twenty minutes straight, drinking his coffee, adjusting in his chair, but wrote nothing. Hell, he hadn't even picked up his pen.

Stefan knew what was weighing on Damon's mind. How his encounter with Bonnie, seeing her, talking to her, fighting and arguing with her reminded him of his nameless fantasy girl. Stefan imagined Damon was in denial it had even happened, that he may have slipped into a fugue state without warning. Perhaps for those few minutes he had taken on the characteristics of his hero who dealt with killers both seen and unseen.

There's one behind you right now, Stefan mused darkly.

"Absurd," Stefan heard Damon whisper.

The woman in his head was incongruent to the woman in the alley. The woman in his head had the sweetest smile, could fuck like a bunny, was softer than a baby's bum, and was more loyal than your favorite dog. The bitch in the alley…

Damon rose from the chair and lumbered to his bedroom where he flung himself on the bed, staring aimlessly at the ceiling. Stared for so long white and black circles floated across his vision until finally his lids, impossibly heavy and lethargic closed for good.

 _The sun was on his face. Green grass bent under his feet. In the distance he could hear the sound of children horse playing. The smell of laundered clothes filled his nostrils as well as chimney smoke. Looking down at himself he was dressed in a white shirt, vest, trousers, and riding boots._

 _As he drew closer he saw that there was a woman sitting on the wraparound porch in a rocking chair, a bowl perched on her lap, a pea pod in her hand._

 _Based off her clothing: rust brown muslin dress, white apron, head scarf, enshrined on wrinkled chestnut skin she was a slave._

" _No need in being shy. This your home," she spoke without lifting her eyes from her task._

 _Damon wandered closer. "What am I doing here?"_

 _She smiled, eyes still not on him. "Why you think you here?"_

 _He shrugged. "I don't know."_

" _There's obviously something you need to see."_

 _Right as she said it a boy probably no older than ten came bounding out of the house, dressed similarly as him the difference being there was a grass stain on his left pant leg. His hair was a few hues darker than cinnamon and his big bright eyes were greyish-blue. He smiled at Damon revealing he was missing a tooth._

 _The boy's shiny brown boots clomped nosily down the stairs and thudded quietly once he hit the dirt racing toward him. "You goin' fishing down by the creek?" he asked winded._

 _Damon gaped at the boy for a second before replying, "I'm going for a walk."_

" _Can I come?"_

 _Another woman appeared this one pale with sparkling blue eyes, dressed in a linen shirt buttoned to her chin, and a wide skirt that filled up the entire doorway._

" _You take your brother with you. Be back in time for supper, y'hear."_

" _Yes, ma'am."_

Stefan hovered next to the bed seeing Damon's dreams as they unfolded. The two of them in their youth where he idolized his brother, wanted to be as strapping and handsome as Damon but shrewd like their mother, and respected like their father, whom Stefan later learned was a cunt. But that was neither here nor there. He observed as Damon's nose twitched and his brow furrowed like he was fighting to make sense of his dream, trying to identify who those people were. What they meant to him.

Hand in a tight fist, Stefan ogled that spot on Damon's chest where his heart was. It would be too easy…but he made a promise.

"Sweet dreams, brother."

He vanished.

* * *

Damon woke with a start.

Keys jingled and the next second the door to his apartment was opening. The pungent scent of clove cigarettes, Dove body wash, and designer perfume assaulted his nose which wrinkled. He disregarded those odors as he bounded to the living room, the phantom sensation of his heart pounding in concert with his harried footsteps. He came to a pause, eyes raking along the waif that just burst into his home, and settled on the cooler clutched in her pale hand.

January Holden closed the door and frowned at Damon who stood scowling. "What's up with you?"

He studied every detail. Her height, her weight, the fullness of her blue-black hair. He waited for the familiarity to wash over him, that the familial connection they shared was real, authentic and not a fabrication. Fondness warmed his chest as he stared at who he knew was his older sister. However, niggling in the back of his head was doubt.

Damon shook it away. One encounter with a stranger shouldn't throw all he knew into a tailspin. He wouldn't allow it for a second longer.

"Nothing. You're early," he replied gruffly.

"Yeah," she shrugged, "I have a busy day today."

"Busy doing what?"

"What I get paid handsomely to do," she beamed, lime green irises twinkling in the sunlight that flooded the apartment.

"Body shame stay-at-home moms who come to you thinking if they do enough Pilates they'll get their high school figure back?"

January made a noncommittal motion with her free hand, "More or less. They pay me to literally whip their ass into shape. I tell them upfront to check their feelings at the door. Not my fault if they can't handle my tough love approach to fitness."

"Whatever."

"I brought you eats," she held up the cooler and made a beeline for the kitchen where she restocked the bare shelves with bags of O negative.

Damon watched her. He had questioned long ago why they drank blood knowing what that made them based on the lore. January had never given him more than a surface answer, but pretty much put the fear of God into his heart that if he didn't have a bag of blood a day he'd shrivel up, dick included, and die.

" _We're different. We're special. We're the kind of people stories are written about because we're just that fucking cool. We're blood drinkers, Archer. We rock."_

That had been January's colorful explanation. But he wanted to know what it meant and why they drank blood. Was it a European thing? It couldn't have been for medicinal purposes, and definitely not as part of some religion since he was sure he didn't possess a spiritual bone in his body.

" _Don't concern yourself with the why," January had waved off his anxieties and questions. "But you have to keep it quiet. The rest of society, they can't know about us because they won't understand. And people fear what they don't understand if I can sound cliché for two seconds."_

" _Why are we like this? What happened to us?"_

 _January had swallowed half a pint of wine before answering, "The short of it, we died with vampire blood in our system and we transitioned. We're the undead."_

" _This is insane."_

" _Never promised any of this would make sense but it does if you don't think about it too deeply."_

" _How can you be so calm about this? We died and now w-we're alive again. That's not normal or natural for that matter."_

" _I've had time to deal with it. You haven't."_

Damon had pummeled her with more questions in which January's answers became shorter and more succinct. He needed to know who turned them and why. What was their purpose now? At the end she had lost all semblance of patience and abruptly gotten to her feet, red veins taking over the whites of her eyes.

"Don't _take that ring off._ Don't _tell anyone who and what you are," she pointed a finger at him. "It's not safe for us. Trust no one but me and Oscar and you'll be fine. I mean it, Archer, keep your fucking mouth shut and your head down. You'll live longer if you do."_

Damon cleared his throat as that memory receded.

Once she was done stocking his fridge for the week, as her routine, she rifled through her purse and pulled out her cigs.

"Can I bum one off of you?" Damon asked.

January looked at him sharply, impeccably arched eyebrow lifted, "Since when do you smoke? Or want to?"

"Since now," he snapped his fingers and motioned for her to share.

"These are like my children. I can't part with them."

"January, give me a gotdamn cigarette. I need one after the night I had."

"What kind of a night did you have? I know for a fact you didn't fuck anyone last night."

Damon pulled a face. "I'm pretty sure in the brother-sister rulebook of etiquette discussing sex lives is a huge hell no."

With that January rolled her green eyes but handed him a cigarette, lit it. Damon dragged the smoke into his lungs, coughed a little.

"Better?" January eyed him critically.

"No."

The siblings settled on the couch, January blowing clouds of white-gray smoke from her pursed lips. She knew something was on his mind from his pensive expression and it caused her worry to spike.

"What is it?"

Damon slumped against the cushions, eyes on the ceiling. "I met someone yesterday."

"You did?" January brightened though she was still wary. "Did you ask her out?"

"I was going to until she saw fit to attack me."

January nearly burned herself, "What?"

Damon nodded grimly and launched into the whole sordid business, missing January growing paler and paler by the minute.

Her ashen pallor was back to normal once Damon finished retelling his afternoon. She tried her best to disguise her shaking hand when she put out the clove in the ashtray.

"Describe her to me," January shifted uneasily on the couch.

"Five-two or five-four, mocha complexion, eyes a shade darker than yours, shoulder length black hair."

"Did she have any visible tattoos or scars?" she managed to push through her rapidly closing throat.

Damon frowned at the inquiry but answered nonetheless, "Yeah, she had a tattoo behind her right ear," he swiveled his head toward his sister. "Do you know her?"

"No."

Eyes shrinking at the corners, Damon heard a note of dishonesty in January's quick response. "Who is she, Jan?"

"I don't know, Archer, but she sounds like a deranged nut. If you see her…you might have to…"

"Have to what?" He had an idea what January was suggesting which would be breaking their golden rule.

"Just promise me if you should run into her again that you'll get somewhere safe and call me."

Laughing bemusedly, Damon scrubbed at his cheek. It chafed his machismo that his sister wanted him to tuck tail and run from a woman the size of a garden gnome to hide behind her toothpick legs. He had his pride and liked to believe he listened and followed his instincts when it counted. Yes, he managed not to encounter any violent or territorial, warmongering vampires, he was positive he could hold his own in a fight. Damon wouldn't run and leave it up to his sister to battle on his behalf.

"I can handle myself, January," he cracked his knuckles.

No you really can't she almost refuted. Not against _them._ "I told you there are people out there who can hurt us despite what we are. Don't try to be a hero, Archer."

A tick went off in his jaw. "And don't patronize me. I don't need you to hold my hand. If I run into the bitch again I'm sure I can make her regret it."

Smiling without an ounce of humor, January slapped her hands on her thighs and got to her feet. "I need to get going before I'm late for my first appointment. You have a week's worth of blood. I'll see you at Angelo's party."

"I'm not going."

"You are and you will deal. Love you, little brother."

Pouting, Damon threw up his middle finger to which January tossed her head back and laughed.

Her laughter died as soon as she exited the building. With shaky fingers she rummaged through her landfill of a purse for her cell. Checking both ends of the street, January scurried to her car while dialing a number.

"Hey, we might have a problem. I think Bonnie's here. Yes! Here. She saw him. What are we going to do? I'm not panicking but…" January fought with unlocking the driver's side door of her coup, and fell behind the wheel once she did. "Look, we need to figure out what we're going to do and we need to do it _fast_." She gnawed her lower lip while she listened. "I think he's shaken up but…Yeah I'll double up my surveillance. All right. We'll rendezvous in twelve hours."

* * *

 **What he doesn't remember…**

* * *

…frantically she looked around which was completely and totally pointless. She couldn't see anything. The car came to a stop about a quarter of a mile later. They exchanged curious looks at one another. Something wasn't right. This pit stop wasn't on tonight's agenda.

"What's going on?" Damon questioned.

The driver ignored his question and raised the partition.

Damon reached for the door handle to find it wouldn't open. "Shit."

"What is it? What's going on? Where are we?" Bonnie hated herself for asking those questions because Damon knew about as much as she did at the moment.

"I don't know," her husband leaned forward and pounded his fist on the partition. "Open the fucking door!"

The back passenger door did open a second later and what greeted them, neither one of them expected.

Before Damon could utter a single word, a meaty brass knuckle fist careened into his cheek. The impact made his head snap back and to the right where he was then grabbed by the sleeve and lapel of his jacket and hauled out of the vehicle and on to hard gravel that cut into his skin. He grunted on impact.

"Damon!"

He couldn't respond. Not right away. Not while he battled with vertigo. His nose was bleeding, his lip was busted, and his vision swarm. All he could see were feet as they circled him like sharks. How many were they?

"Bonnie!" Damon screamed and then made a reach for the wooden butterfly knife strapped to his ankle, but he received a sharp kick in the back so hard it cracked several vertebrae.

"You didn't think you could live happily ever after did you?" a woman's voice said. Cunning and mocking and filled with cruelty.

"Don't…" he coughed up blood, "Don't hurt her. Please."

"Pain is the language on which we thrive. Bag them both!"

 **A/N: The good news, I have the logistics worked out. The bad, I hope I can bring it altogether. I know much wasn't revealed in what happened to Damon and Bamon's marriage but answers are coming, promise. So what did we think? Please let me know. I have chapter 3 sort of written and it will be coming shortly. Thank you again for reading. XOXO!**


	3. Madness has a name

**A/N: Bonjour my loves. Thank you so much for the continued support. I guess in chapter 1 I should have reiterated that this story isn't based on or inspired by the ABC show of the same name. I just liked the title of it, lol. So sorry if any began reading this thinking this would in some way mirror Still Star-Crossed the show. And if you're not watching the show, START! If it's available where you live, that is. You won't regret it. Onward, march. Enjoy.**

* * *

 **Present time- The night they were reunited**

* * *

The muggy air was like a hug from a parent. It gave her comfort yet also made her hackles rise. She was surrounded on all sides by windows. Some of them illuminated but plenty more were dark. She wondered who was staring down at her as she ambled down the street somewhat disgraced by her earlier actions. The evidence of it could be found in her palms that ached from holding the garrote around Damon's neck. Bonnie's stomach rumbled at the thought of attacking him. She shouldn't have gone that far.

Tonight didn't go at all as planned, which wasn't exactly an unexpected thing for the witch. The best laid plans always went up in smoke. Being thwarted was foreplay and sooner rather than later she'd see Damon again.

Bonnie came to a jarring stop once she rounded a corner and saw a black sedan creeping along the avenue with the headlights off. Like that wasn't conspicuous at all. Instinct told her they weren't cops. This street wasn't known for criminal activity other than the bar she was trying to reach which charged a ridiculous price for a bourbon neat. Filing her complaint for another day, Bonnie pressed her back along the brick façade of the building and observed.

The windows of the car were heavily tinted. That wasn't an impediment for Bonnie. Her eyesight, hearing, all her senses really, bordered on animal acuteness. She could see far distances, hear sounds from blocks away, and her sense of smell was off the charts thanks in due to part to spells.

There were two men inside the car. The passenger was arguing in a language Bonnie couldn't exactly make out while the driver kept sweeping from one side of the street to the next. She didn't know who they were and, their features were so nondescript they were forgettable. She didn't believe they were looking for her, but one could never be too careful. Her reputation had a way of preceding her.

The car crept down the street and Bonnie used the shadows around her for cover. She did all she could to diminish her presence to the point she became invisible.

The late model sedan stopped once it reached the intersection. Bonnie dared not breathe. The driver turned and stared right at her, but nothing registered on his face that he spotted her, could actually see her.

The stoplight changed to green and the sedan made a left and burned off down the road.

Slumping against the wall, Bonnie swallowed thickly despite the fact her saliva had the consistency of paste, and staggered her way to the bar.

Hard rock music could be heard streaming from the closed door. Standing guard was not one of her favorite people. But a familiar face was better than a total stranger.

The man was tall, wore head to toe black and had the audacity to wear shades despite it being nighttime. The guy, Bonnie barely remembered his name—Dev, or Steve, or Al, whatever he made no move at her approach, didn't straighten from his casual lean next to the door. The bouncer was tall, nearly six-five and filled out his short sleeved T-shirt _extremely_ well. He tilted his head only infinitesimally in her direction and then went back to ignoring her.

Bonnie compressed her lips together, kept her stride confident though she wanted to fold like burning paper. She froze when she noticed him sniffing the air. Werewolf, she guessed.

"You're injured," his words gave her pause. "Security is low tonight so if you're bringing trouble with you…"

"Look," she cut him off. "I'm not here for any trouble, but if you don't let me in I won't feel a tiny bit bad about kicking your ass. I've had one hell of a night and I could use a drink."

Bonnie expected the werewolf to rise to the occasion that his masculinity was being tested. Instead, one corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk.

"Well, when you put it like that," he finally stood to his full height, took one step toward the door and opened it with a special key. "Welcome to One-Twenty."

Bonnie flashed a here and gone smile, ducked her head using her dark hair as a curtain, and walked past the bouncer, and entered the bar.

It was more club than bar, or more to the matter, more of hostel with a bar in the center of it. Bonnie didn't know when this sanctuary for those who were two natured, more human than human had been established, and really she didn't care. There were only a handful of safe places for someone like her to go when they needed to lay low or were injured and needed special medical attention. Lucky for her, her injuries were superficial. Out of habit she rubbed her right wrist, the one that had been broken. It no longer bothered her as she fully healed it but sometimes…sometimes Bonnie felt a phantom flash of pain.

As she looked around it was wall to wall bikers, their old ladies, a couple of college frat boys and sorority girls wanting to take a walk on the wild side, and of course individuals who couldn't find someplace else better to go.

Bonnie skirted around the milling crowd to reach the bar. She moistened her lips with her tongue and waved a bartender over.

It was a white woman with red hair, fake boobs, pretty sea green eyes, and tattoos almost on every available inch of skin.

"What can I get for you, doll?" she said in a heavy Louisiana accent.

"Bourbon neat. Keep 'em coming," Bonnie rolled up the sleeves of her trench coat.

The bartender grunted. A thinly arched eyebrow climbed to her hairline. The lady placed a half-filled tumbler of bourbon in front of Bonnie who wasted no time snatching it up and tossing it back. "So what's your deal? I've seen you in here once before."

Before answering, Bonnie winced at the burn of the alcohol and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. She came here occasionally for one reason only and that reason was sacrosanct and not up for public consumption.

"Good memory," Bonnie snarked.

"No need for the attitude, honey," the woman sniffed.

"Sorry, I've just had a crappy afternoon. It's nothing personal."

The bartender offered her a sardonic smile. "Almost everything in life is personal, doll. If you don't want to talk about it it's your business."

Bonnie arched a brow. She wasn't one for divulging her secrets to perfect strangers, and she really couldn't afford to leave any kind of paper trail behind. Already her skin was itching for her to move on but she couldn't. Not without Damon.

"When your life is shit nothing should faze you, right?" she found herself saying. "But then you're reminded there is something still left that you care about. And you're fighting tooth and nail to get it back."

"Anything worth having is worth fighting for. But you don't need me to tell you that. The drink's on the house."

Bonnie's dimpled brow softened as did her tone, "Thank you."

She tapped the empty glass to her forehead, eyes shuttering close.

* * *

 **One year before their last night together**

* * *

Her arms were tightly folded across her chest. She was in a mood—no—she was high key _pissed_ , embarrassed, humiliated, the emotional works. And from his clenched jaw and avid attention to the road in front of them so was he. Bonnie scoffed. He had no fucking right to be mad. About anything! He didn't stand around for hours watching her flirt with some councilwoman. He didn't have to make small talk hoping to distract people from looking into that darkened corner where he had an intense conversation with someone he seemed incapable of staying away from. No, he didn't have to endure his curt and biting responses to questions when he finally remembered his ass had a wife he'd neglected almost all night. No, he didn't have to put up with any of that!

"Why'd you ask me to go with you if you were just gonna be in her face the whole gotdamn night, Damon? I had better things to do with my time than to watch you kiss that woman's ass."

He snapped his head toward Bonnie. She glared back, brow raised waiting for him to say something smart. She could see a litany of curses and expletives he was fighting tooth and nail to keep tramped down. Swallowing whatever colorful retort came to mind, his hand cinched the wheel tighter while his foot pressed harder on the gas.

Damon tempered himself. She didn't understand how politics worked. She knew spells, knew how to follow and carry out orders. Compromise was not a word often illustrated in the circles she used to run.

"You're making something out of nothing. Leave this alone, Bonnie."

"How can I leave it alone when it looks like my husband is cheating on me?"

Muscle thumping his jaw, Damon mashed his foot on the gas. Bonnie gripped the seat and glowered at him. Her questions fell on deaf ears as Damon ripped through town and slammed on the brakes that squealed against the asphalt. He cut he engine, flung open his door and did the same to Bonnie's all but hauling her out of the car.

" _This_ is the reason I've been kissing that woman's ass as you so eloquently put it. I need zoning permits and licenses and once I have them this," he thrust an arm toward the boarded up building, "will be our new bar and grill," his stance relaxed as he saw Bonnie taking in the view in front of her. Damon continued, "Still working on the name but I've been rolling Bond around on my tongue. The first three letters of your name with my first initial," he beamed saucily.

Eyes toward the prewar façade, Bonnie slumped against the Camaro, "You're opening a bar?"

She was simultaneously relieved and dismayed. Relieved her husband wasn't on the cusp of starting an affair, and dismayed because this was the last thing she expected, and didn't think exposing themselves in this avenue would be a smart move. They had to keep a very low profile for a reason.

"Correction, _we're_ opening a bar," Damon interrupted her musings. "And I'm trying to go about things the legit way. We said we were going straight, right? No magic, no compulsion, just a man and his wife living out the American dream one paycheck at a time."

Skepticism carved a home for itself on Bonnie's forehead, "What am I going to do at this bar? I don't know the first thing about running a business."

"That's not true. You run our house, you run me," Damon stood in front of her, hands coming to rest on her amble hips. "We'll figure it out. Take some business management classes, whatever it takes. I want this to be our baby."

"Running a bar has always been your thing. Me, it's been music."

"We have that in common, too. You could play here some nights. Think about it, Bon. This is something I want us to do together."

Bonnie searched his eyes prior to staring at the structure that would need a ton of work and overhaul of everything if she were guessing correctly. If this enterprise failed they'd be broker than broke. If they succeeded Bonnie sensed everything that made them work as martial partners would be lost or lessened in some way.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in Damon's chest. She wouldn't crush his dream because she had a feeling it would turn into her nightmare.

* * *

...

* * *

Bonnie dropped her glass on the bar top. Instinct. She should have listened to her instincts. Bonnie licked the seam of her lips, felt her stomach rumble with hunger.

"Is the kitchen still open?" she threw out to her bartender who happened to be sailing by leaving a cloud of Estee Lauder perfume in her wake.

The bartender tossed up her index finger telling her to hold on.

"If its food you want…I'd be happy to feed you."

Inwardly Bonnie groaned. Great. She's attracted the attention of a preschooler. She could see his khaki pants, stripped polo shirt, and open toe sandals in her peripheral. Blonde hair and brown-eyed he was definitely proud of his summer tan. Her unwelcomed, would-be suitor angled his body perpendicular to hers, rested his forearm on the counter, splayed his hand on its scratched surface. He smelled like sun, sweat, and trust fund.

"No, thank you," Bonnie declined.

"Aww, don't be like that, babe. I just—"

A flash of silver cut through the muted light of the club. Like a mini bolt of lightning so swift and fast at first he thought he imagined it. As he tried to move his hand another inch something impeded the action. He looked down.

Between his middle and ring finger was the blade of a Balisong Butterfly knife.

His eyes flew to Bonnie in shock and horror. With her hand around the hilt of the blade, she said, "Lesson one, 'no' is a complete sentence. Lesson two, if a woman does not even give you the benefit of eye contact do not try to engage her in conversation. And three, if a woman tells you to fuck off whether she utters those two words or 'no thank you', you get the fuck on. Got it, _Brad_?"

The college coed snatched his hand away, mouth opening and closing like a fish. He tucked tail and ran.

Bonnie withdrew her knife, expertly sheathing the blade within its bite and safe handles. Those standing around who witnessed what happened didn't utter a word and eventually returned to their conversations.

The bartender parked herself in front of Bonnie. "Meal's on the house, too."

Bonnie flashed a smile and noticed she had garnered more of an audience than she would have liked. "Can I get that to go?"

Before she left, Bonnie slipped upstairs to one of the rooms that could be rented by the hour. Tucked beneath the outside of the window sill was a missive that she unfurled, read, and sent up in flames.

Those searching for her were distracted for the time being. They had a bit more time.

* * *

 **Damon, how?**

* * *

It is caution that drives you out of bed this morning and not routine. Your encounter with that woman has not faded from your thoughts nor the peculiar way January reacted after hearing about it. She knows something. Your far-fetched theory is January sent that woman to keep you on your toes, or to provide a distraction because you've chosen self-exile and thinks you'll never get laid unless she arranges it. The probable theory, January feared your secret might be out, and it was time to start taking precautions.

It's not as if you have the most active social life. Hell, the last time you went out on a date was, you count up the days, carry the one, and divide by two. Yep it's been two months. You see the way women look at you but none are appealing and more than once you question your sexuality but you feel somewhere deep inside you made a promise to never love anyone else. Now you're brutally reminded that the first woman who caught more than just your eyes but sparked real, genuine interest attacked and tried to kill you.

Maybe you have a thing for sadists.

But what the hell does any of it matter? If you're lucky, you'll never cross paths with batshit crazy woman again. That should bring you a smidgen of relief but instead you feel a pang of…well you're not sure. Disappointment?

So you get up: piss, shit, shower and shave, throw on some clothes, and drink a blood bag. You kind of have a taste for pancakes but you don't have flour, eggs, or milk. You disregard that tug in your stomach that wants something solid, and head to the piano carrying a cup of freshly brewed coffee. You stare at the sheet music and try to think of the notes that should come next in the sonata you've been composing for weeks. Something about this seems like a long established routine, far longer than the year you've lived in Cypher Hills. But you try not to think that you can't remember ever taking piano lessons or who your teacher might have been. Again, fragments of your life are gone or missing. Incomplete, and again you think it's probably all for the best. You just know your fingers and feet know what to do. So you do it.

You work on your music for the allotted hour before it's time to leave for the ten a.m. summer British Lit class you convinced the instructor to let you sit in on. You didn't think it would work, but you discovered you have awesome powers of persuasion. People, when you look them directly in the eye rarely say no to you. That brings a small smirk of satisfaction.

You're not an official college student, nevertheless, you do like sitting in lectures from time to time, if nothing else than to be around other people.

You grab your stuff and you're out the door wincing at the sunlight and grimacing against the blare of horns and the dozens of conversations pedestrians are engaged in. It takes a moment or two to dull the sound and once you're sure your eardrums won't explode, you're off.

Cypher Hills is something of an oasis not far off a rocky California coast. Most of the buildings architecture is inspired by the underwater Italian city Baiae. One will find a lot of stone and metal men and women in togas standing as sentries on top of office buildings to drug stores, looking down and judging everyone. The streets are like those of any metropolitan city. Congested, compacted, confusing. The roadways riddled with potholes, the sidewalks stained. Thankfully it doesn't stink beside gas exhaust and ozone. A constant breeze from the ocean makes breathing bearable. If you go more inland, and up the sharp jagged edges of Mount Minerva there are mineral springs and waterfalls.

The mountainside is also home to mountain lions, coyotes, foxes, deer, and the occasional black bear. The best part of this city, it never gets colder than fifty degrees in the winter.

You're halfway to the campus of Montenova University when paranoia starts to creep in. You think you're being followed so you covertly check over your shoulders, but have no idea what the hell to look for. A person dressed in all black? You're the only person dressed in all black apart from the occasional blue collar worker you see dipping inside of restaurants that line this part of the city. Lingering stares happen enough you've grown to ignore them yet now you're wondering if they're looking at you because they've been _told_ to.

Up ahead you see a petite black woman walking down the center of the sidewalk. Shades cover her eyes and her shoulder length hair bounces and shines. Your heart lurches because what if it's her? Though you can see the similarities but also the differences because your attacker's face had not budged from your thoughts. They are seared, welded like steel beams to hold a structure. Regardless, alarm bells are telling you to head in the opposite direction, but you are not an average man.

You are closer now and it won't be long before she's in reaching distance. You start breathing like you're in gotdamn labor, and tell yourself to man the hell up. She's a woman—a tiny one at that—and you are you. Whoever you are.

" _Your name is Damon Salvatore…"_

Your name is Archer Ian Holden.

"… _Damon Salvatore…"_

A Greek-Italian demon savior. Absurd.

You've caught a whiff of the woman's perfume. It's not the same scent as the woman who tried to take your head off.

Air rushes out of your lungs and quickly fills back up in relief and you quicken your steps because crisis aborted.

Not long the stone towers of Montenova University come into view. This college resembles a medieval castle you're almost affronted there isn't a moat.

Five minutes later you enter the classroom and duck into your usual seat in the back. There's ten minutes left before the start of the lecture and you make use of the time by shooting a text to Oscar telling him to wake his lazy up, soap his balls, and meet you at Tirimo's at three. He reluctantly agrees.

* * *

...

* * *

Small towns were the worst. Problematic. There was no clean and easy way of getting in and out. New faces were too well-remembered, stirred curiosity, and everyone became its acolyte wanting to know as much as they could as fast as it could be devoured and spread. Good thing Cypher Hills though not as large as Los Angeles, Sacramento, or San Francisco was just the right size and population for anonymity to be possible. They could be nobody here.

Stefan's jaws worked as he chewed gum. He blew a bubble and popped it as he sat in the passenger seat of a hotwired Ford Fusion. A flashy, Italian made luxury vehicle would have drawn far too much attention. It was bad enough he looked the way he did. It was why he often avoided going out in public during daylight, but today it couldn't be avoided. His mistress, he thought mockingly, who sat behind the wheel was getting antsy.

He had not gone to spy on his older brother last night, but had wandered the streets, drank from a patron or two and thought about slaughtering five. He stayed his hand because Bonnie would have been pissy with him, and though annoying her brought a modicum of joy to his world, he rather not fashion a permanent place for himself on her bad side. She looked harmless enough but it was a cover.

They all wore covers to some degree.

As it stood they were parked along the curb a few feet from the front entrance of Tirimo's, an Italian bistro Damon like frequenting three days out of the week. He typically ordered the salmon or sometimes the lasagna, top shelf bourbon, and a slice of tiramisu. It sickened Stefan that he knew these trite details about his brother.

"We should leave him to his sad excuse for a life. You know…deep down…he's better off without the both of us, Bonnie," he glanced at her.

She cricked her neck, tired of this recurring dispute. "He's your brother, Stefan."

"I know well who the fuck he is, Bonnie," Stefan hotly retorted. The visible veins on his face pulsed. "Doesn't change or negate the fact the Stefan he doesn't even remember, I'm not that Stefan anymore."

Bonnie knew he wasn't just referring to his aesthetics.

"I…recognize he's your husband and if you want to talk to him, fine. I just know by the time it'll take for him to believe you we'll be caught. They're looking for us and they won't stop until we've been found. Then what? We let them finish the job this time? Kill us for good?"

"I have a plan."

Stefan wagged his head, turned his attention back out the window. "Some plan," he mumble a beat later.

"It's not ideal," Bonnie conceded. "But the alternatives, no. I know what the right thing to do is but…I can't. If you were in my shoes could you walk away from the person you love?"

Stefan mulled the question around as if it were a Rubik cube. Would he learn the secrets of love if he matched all the colors together? He doubted it.

He drummed his fingers on his denim covered thigh, "The answer you don't want to hear is…if it meant keeping them safe. The answer I'm going to say," Stefan was distracted by his brother sauntering down the block where he made an abrupt turn into a pair of revolving doors. Out the corner of his eye he saw Bonnie perk up. His lip wanted to curl. She was like Pavlov's dog when it came to his brother. Conditioned to focus solely on him. He knew his next words would be wasted.

"Want to go inside?" Stefan jeered instead of finishing his original thought.

Bonnie's fingers wrapped around the steering wheel. It was taking everything she possessed to not to hop out of the car and fly in after Damon. She never got very far by acting hastily though this situation required she move swift. Patiently.

Unfortunately the idea of patience made her ill.

Five minutes ticked off the clock before she cranked the engine of the car. "We have our window. We're taking it."

Stefan resisted smiling too much as he offered, "I can make it painless."

"You'll snap his neck and stuff him in the back of a trunk. How is that going to get him to trust us?" Bonnie put the car in gear and eased into traffic, slowly rolling by, looking through the passenger side window as she searched for Damon.

He was being led to a table where a man was already seated. Stefan watched her the whole time.

"We don't need him to trust us so much as we need to make a clean getaway," Stefan said. "This city may look like a safe haven, but it has eyes and ears and they are beginning to take notice. Don't tell me you haven't felt the switch, the change since we came here two weeks ago?"

Bonnie had and chose to flout it in favor of learning Damon's schedule and figuring out the best way to make her reentry into his life. She had to gleam how many people he came into contact with, how many of those connections were deep and personal. She needed to know who would be problematic, get suspicious if he turned up missing. Who she and Stefan would have to deal with i.e. kill because they were under orders to make sure Damon languished in amnesiac bliss.

The first two people on her list were a woman named January and a guy named Oscar.

Clearing the restaurant, Bonnie stomped on the gas.

* * *

 **Damon's real?**

* * *

Oscar who never cared to divulge his last name…you go over facts about him that you've been able to pluck out of his often inebriated state. He's from a fishing village, Kitashiobara in Japan, where he claims to have left home at fifteen for a better life. He's never spoken of his parents or if he has sisters and brothers, but sometimes he mutters names in his sleep: Nora, Malcolm, Mary-Louise, Beau, Valerie. Whenever you try to bring them up, he changes the subject by drawing your attention to whatever big-breasted woman is in ogling vicinity. He quite possibly loves bourbon more than you, and is probably sadder than you, but he's always laughing and smiling, and telling some joke, or looking for the next party to crash.

When he's in the mood to be serious, he quotes poems by writers you've never heard of, and have actually looked up and researched. He has an affinity for ballet though he'd be loathed to actually be seen sneaking off to enjoy a show.

Today his eyes are not red and hazy with drink, and he does smell like he's showered. A plus. Already there are three empty glasses on the table, and you know by the time lunch is over there won't be room for the damn check.

"Archer, what's up!" Oscar greets jovially earning disapproving frowns from the older customers.

"Hey," you sit down and steeple your fingers.

"You wouldn't believe, well no you would believe how blitzed I got last night but it was good night. You missed it, my friend. Twins," he beamed. "Not at all turned off by the idea of seeing one another naked."

"Good for them. Listen there's something I need to…"

The waitress pops up and you see the usual gleam in her eye once hers land on you. Already you're annoyed and she's yet to open her mouth. You don't care about platitudes and trading pleasantries to ensure she won't spit in your food. You want what you want—the main thing being answers—and aren't in the mood for her paltry attempts at flirting.

"Welcome…"

You look her dead in the eye, vaguely aware of how still she's become. "I'll have the grilled salmon, potato au gratin, and steamed spinach with a glass of your oldest chardonnay and the best bourbon your boss hoards in his office."

The waitress obediently nods and stumbles in the direction she came from. Oscar has not taken a sip of his bourbon though he holds the glass half an inch away from his lips.

He does chortle before finishing off his drink.

"I see you're in a mood," he remarks. "You could have told her to bring the bottle."

"You could have done that yourself. As I was saying before we got interrupted. I need to talk to you about something."

"Yes, Archer nocturnal emissions is perfectly natural."

"Gotdammit would you listen!" you bellow then look around. You lower your voice, "This is serious. I was attacked two nights ago."

Now you have Oscar's attention.

He folds his arms on the table. "Tell me everything that happened."

Like you did with your sister, you tell him from start to finish what happened. During that your drinks arrived and then a short while later your food that you forego eating because you have to get out every detail even the details you didn't share with January.

Once you're finished, Oscar doesn't look shocked or nervous for you. Not resigned. Not anything. His face reveals nothing.

"Well?" you demand.

"Well what? She's obviously crazy."

You scoff at that. That's his best deduction? You're let down and shake your head. "I'm assuming Damon Salvatore is like us. Why else would she say that shit to me? Why would she think I was him? Have you ever heard of him?"

Oscar worms his tongue around his mouth. You can see that. It's a stall tactic of his when he's thinking of what lie he wants to tell.

"Lie to me and I'll make you eat your teeth," you threaten. It's an empty threat.

Oscar knows that but for whatever reason he takes it seriously enough. He pins you with his unfathomably dark eyes. "I did hear of a Damon Salvatore. He was the son of an old friend. He died in 1864."

Old friend? Then it dawns on you how old Oscar said he was and part of you refuses to believe that even knowing what you, he, and January are. Vampires. Oscar is some four hundred years old. To humans he is a thirty year old Asian male with a drinking problem.

Yet you comb through what he's revealed. Damon Salvatore, according to Oscar did exist, but he's been dead for a century and a half.

"Is he a vampire?"

"No, like I said he died in 1864."

The same year that woman said he died or had been turned. You feel you're on to something and probe deeper.

"Are you absolutely sure about that?"

"Like, I said Archer, it's what I was told. I didn't ask for a death certificate or for the body to be exhumed."

"What did he look like?"

Oscar shrugs, "I don't know. I never saw him."

"Not even a photograph?"

"You know how rare photography was back then."

"This friend…is that…person still alive?"

"No. She died in 1903."

And you see a dark cloud move over Oscar's head. But it's gone in the snap of the fingers.

"Your friend, was she a vampire?"

"She was," he squirms a bit.

"If she was a vampire then how do you know her son wasn't one?"

"She told me he died and I left it alone. Now back to what I did last night," he waggles his brows.

Lunch is tedious and the bill's been settled. You're standing on the sidewalk about to go home, but you look address your friend wondering if he'll finally tell you the truth.

"You know more about me than you're letting on, aren't you? You know why I can't really remember my life before coming here?"

"Archer…I met you the same time I met your sister," Oscar is imploring you to believe him, you can see that. You just don't buy it. "You two needed help and I helped you. Whatever mess you two got yourselves involved in, I don't have any details."

"Then who the hell does?" The concave space above your cheeks heat and throb. You pinch the bridge of your nose. Your gums hurt because your fangs want out and you're overwhelmingly thirsty for blood.

Your friend grips your shoulder, "Get a hold of yourself," he says between clenched teeth.

"I'm fine."

"You're not. Go home, Archer. You have a good life. No real problems. Forget that encounter with that woman. She's not important. You hear me?"

Though heeding Oscar's command is the last thing you want to do, you see its getting dark and you've been away from home for too long. You walk away adding nothing to your life but more confusion.

* * *

...

* * *

Nothing about this place screamed Damon Salvatore to her. It was clean and orderly, but the furniture was the kind he had made fun of when they went shopping for pieces for their home.

" _I don't want our house to look like we ripped straight from the pages of Potterybarn. It's gotta a make a statement."_

" _Well, I'm all for that. However, I'm not trying to live in a pre-Victorian looking house either," she had argued._

Her lacquered nails trailed along the slightly yellowed ivory keys of the ancient piano that had seen far better days. She pressed a few keys and stood corrected. It was perfectly in tune. She peeked at the sheet music, smiled a little. Next her attention went to a desk and its strange placement in the apartment. It blocked the hallway which Bonnie assumed led to the bedroom. It was covered in papers, some crumbled and balled. Some were blank. A neatly organized stack of maybe four hundred pages, if she had to guess, sat on the far left corner. Cocking her head, Bonnie hesitated before reaching for the top sheet but decided against reading it.

She examined the contents of the bedroom. It was sparsely decorated. The only piece worth mentioning or remembering was the bed that looked custom made for someone with an over inflated ego or was extremely tall. It rested on a small dais. That brought a smile to her face because _finally_ she found something had her husband's signature written all over it. A Persian rug lied on the floor, an arm chair sat in front of a small brick fireplace. There was another desk that sat caddy corner to the fireplace but there was nothing on top and no drawers for her to snoop through.

She headed over to the handcrafted armoire with a beautiful landscape painted on the doors. Bonnie opened one and inside was nothing but a row of black shirts and neatly folded black jeans tucked into cubby holes. Suits and ties, shoes mainly loafers, one pair of sneakers that looked brand new, and yes a pair of Durango boots that only had a scuff mark or two.

Damon's scent was heavily permeated into his clothes. Bonnie barely resisted tugging a shirt off its hanger to bring to her nose in order to sniff. For smell conjured memory and she was being inundated.

The sound of keys unlocking the door interrupted her journey down memory lane. She put the shirt back, closed the armoire and made it back to the living room before the door opened.

* * *

Damon stared aghast. Blinked. He had to be in a fugue state. It was the woman. In his house. Standing in his living room. Like she was over for drinks. All the blood in his body rushed to his head and drained leaving him numb. He was tempted to walk out of his apartment and walk back in thinking he conjured her up, but he appraised her and noticed she wasn't dressed in the trench coat, hosiery, and heels. She wore a dress made of rich navy cashmere if his eyes weren't deceiving him, and she wore black suede heels.

"Damon," the woman called him by that insufferable name he knew wasn't his.

He almost, almost wished January was here despite telling her he could handle himself. Oscar would be preferable or maybe Old Lady Sugarman on the first floor. He knew she had a shotgun she kept clean and handy.

Whatever he held in his hand he dropped to the floor and took one step. He closed his eyes and didn't try to fight the fiend that lived inside of him. He let it claw and cleave its way to the surface. Felt his fangs lengthening and his mouth fill with saliva, felt the sound go out of his ears before it rushed back in, felt his heart pound as the bones in his face contorted. When his eyes snapped open he knew the woman was staring at a demon.

She had no reaction.

Until he flew across the living room moving faster than anyone could discern and slammed her against the wall, hard enough to knock a muted scream from her. She gripped his arms hard enough to leave welts. Her hair flew every which way and some of it became tangled, marring her features, but he saw the surprise in her orbs.

He let out some sound he'd never made before that it nearly startled him. Their chests rose and fell rapidly as they inhaled and exhaled together. If it took killing her to get her to leave him alone…so be it.

Damon pulled his lips back from his teeth so she could see what her stalking had caused and would ultimately lead to. He widened his jaw, waited for her to beg or plea for her life. When she steadfastly remained quiet, he reared back to strike.

And stopped within an inch from ripping into her throat.

She was holding something that at first was out of focus that slowly became in focus as Damon leaned away and stood to his full height. In her hand was a photograph of two people.

The two people currently standing in his house.

Damon snatched the photo.

The woman, with her arms wrapped around a man who suspiciously looked like him, they stood on bedrock. "His" hands were buried in "his" jean pockets whereas the woman had hers tucked into the pockets of "his" jacket as she hugged "him" from the back. Her gaze was fixed right on whoever snapped the shot whereas "he" stared up at the sky.

"The air had been crisp and cold, the leaves were in transition, and the trail had been far muddier than anticipated that day. It took us two hours to walk the trail but the payoff had been worth it," Bonnie provided. "We went there to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary."

"You…you doctored this." She had to have done it.

"Check the back."

He flipped the photo and his eyes widened. In his handwriting was the name of the place the photo had been taken and the year. Sol Duc Falls, Olympic National Park, 2014.

Damon stumbled backwards some more, studying the photograph again, scrutinizing it as if it were a mirror ball and would fill in the missing gaps.

He felt someone at his back. Damon spun to see who else had broken into his shit. His eyes bulged once more, and he backed up a step at seeing a man blocking his front door. His face was unlike anything he had ever seen, but couldn't decide what was more terrifying. The blue veins visible around the man's unshaved jaw and beneath his eyes, or his eyes themselves, a cold flat color only brought to life by the thin but shining circle of mercury around the pupil?

"Hello…brother," the man said with a toothy grin. "You all right, Bonnie?"

"I'm fine, Stefan."

Damon gulped and shifted to where he could keep both of them in his sights. "Someone better explain to me, _right now_ that the fuck is going on."

"Glad to," Bonnie said and moved closer. "Everything you're going through now is because of me. It's my fault. And I'll explain. But it's a long story. Will you listen to me?"

"If I want answers…yes."

 **A/N: A lot went down as usual. Thoughts, feelings, expressions of love or frustration? I hope I didn't throw you guys off with the changes in narrator and tense. It's all done for a purpose. So we had another vignette into the marriage of Bamon, I know major questions still haven't been answers i.e. who is after essentially Bonnie/Damon/Stefan, and who erased Damon's memory, and why January and Oscar are working to make sure he doesn't discover who he is. But in due time, lovelies. Thank you so much for reading! Please review.**


	4. Frailty, thy name is vampire

**The past Damon doesn't remember**

They were doing it again. Standing too close together. Like trees bending toward one another. It wasn't so loud they needed to stand so close in order to hear each other. The room wasn't so packed that it called for closer contact with the person you were conversing with. They weren't just talking business, because no one smiled slyly when discussing business, or had a particular twinkle in their eye when chatting about how many rolls of toilet paper to buy. They were bold to do this where anyone could see and form their own conclusions about the nature of their relationship.

There was being friendly on a surface level, pretending interest in someone's everyday woes. And then there was total absorption, hankering for the next word to come out of a person's mouth in which time became inconsequential and flew by obliviously.

Her mind drew a blank on the last time her husband looked so engulfed in a conversation with her. Or as if he couldn't believe they had so many things in common. It was cold where she was standing, sipping from a bottle of Heineken wishing she could go home. The value of the diamond on her finger depreciated every time he failed to call when he was going to be late, or cancelled their dinner plans at the last second, or fell asleep on the sofa in his office, or rolled on top of her to bust a nut leaving her before her insides could even warm up properly.

Marriage she knew wouldn't be some fairytale picnic. Yet no one really told you that when you're pissed and out in public you couldn't let it show, or else the murmur of divorce would start; or that fights weren't resolved in one sitting and could last for days and weeks; that the person you found so attractive had the weirdest and nastiest habits they refused to break, and decided _you_ would just have to get used to it because shit wasn't going to change.

Taking another sip of her beer, she cut her eyes away from her husband and focused them on the décor of the bar. Wood beam ceilings led the eye to exposed brick walls that showcased prints of famous German painter Albrecht Durer which coordinated beautifully with the travertine tile. A polished bar stretched almost the entire length of the establishment offering patrons plenty of room to sip on top shelf liquor while seated on gleaming padded stools. Next her gaze drifted to the smaller more private cordoned off area that was designated for parties and couples who wished to treat themselves to a glass of wine from a three hundred dollar bottle and dine on tapas. Out back was the herringbone brick patio that offered comfortable seating and a wood burning fire pit, and a small stage for live entertainment. A stage she would grace with her presence, guitar, and voice when the mood hit her.

Thinking about the costs again, raised Bonnie's blood pressure. She sighed and sipped.

They had come to the decision not to use their combined names to christen the bar as it would be too conspicuous. So they compromised, settled with a play on what they were which—now that Bonnie thought about it—wasn't that much more subtle: Hexes & O's. Or simply XO's for short. The name itself was scandalous to some and was enough to entice their curiosity to see if half the rumors about it being an occult temple were true.

Needless to say they were disappointed by how normal it was.

It was the grand opening. A year and a half of construction delays, bargaining, pleading, fights, squabbles, budget lapses, and nights spent either sleeping alone or falling straight to sleep after hitting the mattress. He had done it—no— _they_ had done it. Had taken Damon's dream of turning an abandoned storefront property and refurbished it into a trendy, hot spot to liven up this libido killer of a town.

Pride trailed along her nervous system the same as apprehension. The bar was an undisputed and profound success with the mixed age crowd. However, all of the congratulations went to her husband and the person standing at his side. Their operational manager, social media director, bartender, short order cook, and anything else she volunteered herself to be.

Still smiling as he talked, still standing too close, still looking like a young boy with a crush. It could be harmless. He had been drinking a lot. Even before they arrived he had downed a few shots of Macallan. But to her intuition it wasn't as harmless as it should be, as it could be. Her husband, laughing, leaned forward. His head came alarmingly close with the head of the person next to him who mimicked his movement. Close. They were so close it did look intimate. If they shifted at the same time, their mouths would touch. Was the joke _really_ that damn funny?

Bonnie felt the tingle of her magic sizzle her nail beds, superheat her fingers, aching for a release. She was positive if she looked in a mirror her eyes would be a foreboding hue of the deepest green. She sensed each hair follicle becoming infused with energy, cosmic, psychic, and organic. Her bones were the filament in a light bulb and it wouldn't be long before she began glowing with rage.

She needed some air, she decided, but glanced at her husband once more. Would he even notice she was gone?

Tired and pissed, her Ralph & Russo cranberry Baroque pumps served as her herald announcing her arrival as she cut through the mingling crowd in search of the back door.

Bonnie found the exit through the gourmet kitchen—another hefty expense. The heavy metal door slammed shut in her wake. Her fingers gripped the wrought iron barrister. The cold night air made her skin pucker.

Love was not something she spent a lot of time thinking about. But no matter where she went or what she engaged in, it seemed to be the center of conversation. The nexus, the unachievable goal prodded and plucked to death. What drove everything. People lived to love and others loved to hate. But that word, that formless entity was engrained so heavily it was inescapable.

She needed it, wanted it, and was starting to get sick of craving it. Craving it by a measure that couldn't be weighed. What was it her favorite aunt said again? Right. Love could be withdrawn, rack up interest, charge you hidden fees, or keep you cushioned enough to live comfortably.

The kitchen service door opened, garnering Bonnie's attention. Her eyebrows narrowed toward her nose when she saw who it was. The person who had eaten up most of her husband's time and attention tonight. She shifted her gaze to the cars jammed in the employee lot like sardines as her heart pounded faster.

A green bottle was presented to her that she didn't accept.

"I figured you might be thirsty."

"I'm not," Bonnie deadpanned.

"Okay." Pause. "Needed a breather, I see."

She said nothing.

Long strands of raven hair dance prettily on the wind. A pale hand fussily pushed them back, tucking them behind pierced ears. "Seems tonight's grand opening is a hit. The bar has exceeded everyone's expectations."

"Yes, it did," Bonnie agreed wishing she'd cut the idle chit-chat and leave.

"Look, Bonnie I know we've had disagreements in the past, but I'm hoping moving forward we can have a cordial and professional relationship. I really do admire everything you and Damon have accomplished. This town was boring as hell before you guys arrived," the woman laughed airily.

Bonnie shifted toward the little chatterbox, squinting as she gave her a once over. Young, busty, beautiful. But there was something else beneath the surface of that porcelain facade. A wolf could always recognize a fox. And everyone knew foxes were tricksters. Bonnie wouldn't accuse her of anything without sufficient proof and she wouldn't fall into the trope of being the jealous, insecure wife who couldn't handle her husband working in such close quarters with another woman.

But she would issue a warning.

"We did bump heads as we tried to pull this place together, and I hope we can keep it business and leave our personal feelings at the door. However…" Bonnie moved closer and resisted grinning as the woman stood taller in her strappy sandals, "if I catch you fucking up in _any_ capacity, you'll deal with me. And trust me, I'm not the nice one between my husband and I."

Eyes that were a lighter shade of green than Bonnie's widened.

Feeling her message was received, Bonnie retreated inside; however, she couldn't help looking over her shoulder wondering if the uncertain feeling in her stomach would turn out to be nerves or her own warning system that disaster was ahead.

* * *

 **Uncertain, Damon?**

* * *

She stared up into eyes that had been compared to too many seas and oceans by everyone he encountered, and she had strived not be added to the list. There was handsome, gorgeous, hot, and unbelievably fine, and he somehow surpassed those menial adjectives to land somewhere unmeasurable. Right now he eyed her as an enemy, an insurgent out to take his life for no more gain than the high of killing.

Palms out in a classic surrender pose, Bonnie said, "Just relax, Damon."

"My name is _Archer_. Dammit," he cursed. He probably shouldn't have told her that, but if she found where he lived it stood that nothing about him was sacrosanct any longer. And that left him feeling trapped and exposed.

"Again, we're not here to hurt you."

Stefan let out an aggravated breath and rolled his eyes.

Damon squinted at him. "I don't think he agrees with that."

"He probably would like to hurt you for whatever reason but he won't," Bonnie reassured glaring at Stefan.

"What _are_ you?" Damon turned toward Stefan. Staring at him was like staring at a creature from a Guillermo de Toro movie. And as frightening as it was to look at the man, if he could call him that, the beauty of him was in the details. Details he made quick work of imprinting in his memory. Skin possibly whiter than snow with visible translucent blue veins around the entire circumference of his face; hair the color of copper and caramel, and such cold eyes chips of ice were probably warmer.

"I'll keep it simple," Stefan began. "I'm a literal manifestation of monsters who try to turn themselves into gods. Spoiler alert, it didn't work." He flashed behind his brother to whisper, "Or perhaps it did."

Jerking away, Damon told his heart to calm the hell down. The spaces beneath his eyes heated and he felt that telltale pulse signaling he was ready for blood—no he was ready to kill. He heard January in his ear saying killing meant having to get rid of bodies, and getting rid of bodies was not as easy as it looked.

Bonnie stepped forward, "What he is, isn't as important as _who_ he is, Damon."

"I said…"

"I don't care what you've been renamed."

Damon switched topics. "Who is he?"

Bonnie and Stefan exchanged a look. Laconically Stefan uttered, "I'm your brother. Hooray!" he threw up a pair of jazz hands.

"Blood related?"

"Unfortunately…yes."

Damon frowned. He was oddly offended the asshole wasn't apparently happy they were related, but was confused as to why. He didn't know this man and why would he ever want to?

"The footnote version of our long, murderous history," Stefan began pacing around the living room, "our dear papa shot us in the chest in 1864…"

1864\. There was that year again. Three people had brought it up; two out of the three were standing in the room with him. The third person was someone he had lunch with not even an hour ago who mentioned knowing a Damon Salvatore who died in 1864. The cogs in his head turned. Oscar had denied ever physically seeing Damon and couldn't a hundred percent guarantee Damon Salvatore was dead. But who could he believe? Oscar whom he's known for…he couldn't exactly remember. Or the woman claiming to be his wife and the disturbing looking vampire who proclaimed they were brothers?

He tuned back into the man's monologue.

"…after we tried to free our vampire thot Katherine Pierce from capture," Stefan paused at Damon's desk, flipped through a few pages of his manuscript. He could feel Damon wanting to tell him to leave his shit alone. He continued, "We had her blood in our systems, died, I turned first. Brought you a treat and you turned. We declared war on each other but that fizzled for various reasons. Now here we are…brother," he looked up at Damon, the circle of mercury around his pupil seemed to glow.

"You have any proof of that?" Damon grinded his teeth wishing the mutant looking vampire would stop touching his shit.

"No," Stefan chirped. "At least not any I'm carrying around in my back pocket. But it's not me you're really interested in."

Damon hated to admit…he was right. As much as he salivated for details about whatever past the strange vampire believed they shared, it was not the initial hook that started this weird and violent phase of his life. He regarded the woman once more and remembered what she said about this being her fault.

"How? How is everything your fault?"

Stefan observed as Bonnie struggled to get the abstract of the truth out, the summary of a life where more than half was spent becoming very good at what she was, a witch, and a portion of it spent in hiding from the ones who crafted her. He then looked to his brother, at his balled fists, his stiff shoulders, the confusion and fear in his eyes. Every part of Stefan was yelling that this would mount to be a waste of time. Damon wasn't going to remember shit in one afternoon in one conversation over bourbon spiked coffee. They didn't have the luxury of dragging this out.

"More than I can tell you in just the little bit of time we have," Bonnie moved closer and was relieved when Damon didn't shy away from her.

She recognized how tense he was, uneasy, and scared. She didn't blame him.

"You're still not telling me anything to convince me you didn't have that photo doctored and that you're not here to kill me," Damon argued.

"Trust me, if that was our goal, we wouldn't be talking. I'll answer whatever questions you have as long as you promise to come with us."

Damon let out a mirthless guffaw. "You're fucking crazy if you think I'm going anywhere with you just because you claim to know me. How can I trust anything you say to me is the truth and no I'm not willing to take his," Damon hitched his thumb at Stefan, "word for it either."

"You're right, I can't really prove anything I'm willing to tell you is the truth. You only have your gut to tell you what's real and what's not. I can't ask that you trust me because frankly you can't."

Damon sucked in a breath. "Why?"

"I'm a witch, Damon. Witches and vampires don't exactly get along, but you and I did. For a time. Before," her brow dimpled with unpleasant memories, "before outside forces and even those that were internal worked overtime to rip us apart."

* * *

…

* * *

"Bonnie is here and Stefan is more than likely with her. What the fuck are we going to do? We need to contact our guy."

"Absolutely not. You need to calm down, Jan," Oscar tucked his hands into the pockets of his shorts. "Their main concern right now is talking to Archer and when it happens, because it will, we just need to prepare for the aftermath."

January vigorously nodded her head, black hair coming out of her loose ponytail one thick strand at time. She pulled greedily on the cigarette holding the smoke for a long time in her lungs before releasing. This had seemed, well maybe not simple, but not as complicated as things could become should they fall under Bonnie's radar. Maybe she had no knowledge of their involvement. He would be their main concern. They had time but not a whole lot.

"We should let them know and let them deal with it. We know we couldn't pull this off forever. We did good. We kept things quiet for a year."

The two vampires looked at one another. Without it having to be said, no matter which course of action they decided to take, their fates had already been sealed.

"I had lunch with him earlier and I hope I did a good enough of a job convincing him Damon Salvatore is really dead. But maybe…maybe you should pop over there before heading home just to make sure…" Oscar didn't finish his point because he didn't need to. January got the message.

"No, it'll only raise more questions. Tomorrow, I'll check on him tomorrow," she flicked her unfinished cigarette to the ground. "We've been around each other too long we need to leave. If anything happens, let me know."

"You do the same."

"Right," January climbed into her car and drove away.

* * *

…

* * *

Her words they resonated and maybe because they sounded so prophetic, the writer in him could appreciate it. However it stirred something, a quiver that started in his gut, and he did try to listen to his gut. Damon studied the picture in his hand. The man in that photograph appeared content, sure of himself, centered and implanted in a world he actually understood. His blue-eyed gaze canted to the woman in the picture, how directly she stared at the camera or whoever snapped this photo. How she seemed to dare you to interrupt as if you didn't value your life, but also how she invited you in to get a closer look.

"I-I'll talk to y-you," Damon stuttered and cleared his throat roughly, "but he has to go."

Stefan grinned wolfishly. "Ouch, big brother, it hurts that you're afraid of me."

Big brother? He had to bite back the question if he were really the elder between the two of them.

"Stefan," Bonnie said warningly.

"Fine. Consider me a ghost. Remember though, I won't be far."

And like that he vanished.

"How does he not scare you?" Damon said.

Bonnie shrugged. "When you understand something there's no place for fear."

Damon grunted. With the white walker gone, he thought with a wary snicker, Damon became hyperaware. Aware there was a woman inside of his home who wasn't his sister. He was suddenly reticent and nervous, two things he hated he was experiencing. Some innate part said it wasn't like him at all to be a spineless, prepubescent boy. Yet in this moment he was.

Instead of putting on a cocksure front he didn't feel, Damon straightened up and tidied the items _Stefan_ messed with. He still couldn't wrap his head around the fact someone claimed he was their older brother. All he knew was January and she was the oldest.

Or so he been told. Ugh! It was frustrating as hell he didn't know!

He thought about excusing himself to text Jan and tell her to haul ass to his place pronto because it was an emergency. But what kind of danger would he unwittingly put his sister in if he did? Stefan was out there somewhere and Bonnie…she was…she said she couldn't be trusted.

She also said she's a witch but probably a different one from the type you encountered the night you 'met', he told himself.

He sunk a peek at her. She was watching him. Blood rushed to his cheeks and ears and he muttered a curse and avoided her eyes.

For her part, Bonnie smothered a smile at Damon's apparent shyness. It made her heart break and scorch with love fiercer than before. Go slow, she cautioned herself. Be friendly.

She placed all of her weight on one foot while tapping her thighs with her fingers. "Why don't we start over? Maybe that'll help to get you to relax."

The glare he shot at her was mild compared to the glares he'd given in the past. "I don't think that'll ever be possible, given the circumstances."

"Fair enough. But let me reintroduce myself and we'll start from there. Can we do that?" Bonnie stretched out a hand to shake. "Hi, I'm Bonnie Bennett."

Damon appraised her guardedly. The signals firing in his head confused and aggravated him leaving him unsure as to what to do. In this moment he was a list of facts with minimal emotional or sentimental ties to those facts. He was a vessel at best and a shell at worst. A vessel could be filled and used, a shell was simply the wrapper often discarded and forgotten about.

But it also protected.

Summoning up his courage, Damon made his way toward Bonnie and when he stood a foot away, reached for her tiny hand, and clasped it.

He wasn't overridden with a deluge of memories or even felt an electrical spark, but touching her made his belly flip and his hunger spike. "Archer Holder."

Damon let go just as soon as he touched her. His palm burned and he felt himself about to fidget but he fought for motor control, and planted his big feet firmly on the ground. She was on his turf and on his time. He made the rules here. She'd have to follow or else.

"Nice to meet you…Archer."

He inclined his head. "Bennett? That's your last name? Why not Salvatore if we're quote en quote married?"

"It's tradition in my family that we ladies retain the Bennett surname even if we marry."

"I…he…Damon didn't have a problem with you not taking on his…um…last name?"

"Sure _Damon_ ," Bonnie emphasized, "had a problem but I became his wife which was what _he_ wanted."

That piqued his interest. The fact she might not have wanted marriage. "You didn't want to get married?"

"Not at first but eventually the idea started to appeal to me and then finally, I couldn't imagine being married to anyone else."

The wistfulness and intimacy in her voice spoke of sincerity, and just for a second he found himself jealous of the man who was her husband.

Damon cleared his throat again. "When were you married?"

That word _you_ , he was establishing distance by not saying _we_ , Bonnie thought glumly, but accepted it. He needed time. "First, let me say you and I met at the tail end of spring in 2009. On the sixth of September 2010 we got married at midnight, outside in this quiet garden in Estes Park, Colorado. Just you, me, the priest you compelled, and Stefan as our witness."

"I compelled a priest?"

"Yeah," Bonnie smiled. "We couldn't afford to have him tell anyone he'd seen us and married us. We were on the run."

Bonnie scratched behind her ear and made her way to the couch feeling Damon's eyes on her the whole while. Which could be the reason she added more sway to her hips knowing how obsessed he was with her roundly shaped ass and thick thighs. She heard him swallow and approach a good distance behind her. He hesitated before sinking on the other end of the couch. Bonnie followed suit and crossed her legs, the gap in the skirt of her dress made more visible, inching farther apart to reveal the top of her lacy thigh highs and the garter strap holding it in place.

Damon eyed her leg damn near hungrily while absently rubbing his sweaty palms on his knees. She was wearing garters…the heroine in his novel had a collection of garter belts. He shook the similarity away.

"I could use a drink," he sprung up from the couch. "Do you want something?"

"Bourbon. Neat."

Damon blinked and headed to the bar in the kitchen. Making sure he wasn't being watched, he went with his initial plan of texting January but quickly added Oscar letting them know, cryptically, something was wrong. Pocketing his phone, he poured three fingers of bourbon into two glasses, then doubled back to get the whole bottle feeling that it was going to be needed often. He handed the glass to Bonnie who waited until he was seated before taking a sip. Damon drained his glass and rotated the empty tumbler between his hands, contemplating what he should ask next.

"Do you have a marriage license, more photos, anything substantial to back up what you're saying?"

Bonnie shook her head, "Sadly all of our possessions were burned. That photo is all I have of us."

"Convenient."

"A tragedy," she contradicted. "Seven years of memories…gone."

"So the 1864 version of Damon Salvatore is lost as well as the modern era version," he slumped on the couch in order to rest his head on the back of it. After a beat he asked, "What was he like? The Damon you know."

Bonnie lazily swung her foot like a pendulum, collecting her thoughts, smiling faintly. "Damon is…you are…he is stubborn, self-absorbed, reckless, not very good at being subtle, funny, charming especially when yo—he wants something. And he typically got what he wanted. More than a handful and more than an asshole, but once he loves he loves for life and…he's fucks like a dream."

Damon gaped at her sharply, cheeks flushing. Bonnie merely arched a brow.

She rose from the couch after placing her empty glass on the table, sauntered to the floor to ceiling windows. "He has a swagger that rubs people the wrong way, which he uses to his advantage though it gets him into more trouble than out of it. But it makes him irresistible and addicting. He's anal about things being in their proper place and he _hates_ apologizing. But when he does and it's heartfelt," she breathed out a shuddered breath, "it'll leave you in tears." Pause. "He doesn't mind being hated so long as it's for a good reason."

Damon mulled that over. Of course he had no way of knowing what was exaggerated and what was the gospel truth, but he noticed Bonnie didn't sing Damon's praises making him seem like he was ripped straight off the pages of a build-your-dream-man instructional manual.

"Why don't you tell me something about yourself?" Bonnie turned from the spectacular view of the Cordovan Sea and the St. Hugo Basilica located just beyond. "Tell me who Archer is."

That threw him for a moment. Damon sat upright, moistened his lips and stalled by pouring himself another drink. He held the bottle up silently asking Bonnie if she wanted a refill. She declined.

"I think you probably know more about Archer than even I do," he waited for Bonnie to deny it.

She couldn't.

That imbalance that she knew him and he knew nothing about her or even how he came to be in Cypher Hills led him to slamming the bottle harder on the table than intended.

"I can't do this," he said softly. "I can't be fed scraps without proof. I need proof."

"You have proof that we know each other in that photo."

The photo Damon forgot was still clutched in his hand. He tossed it on the table as if it had bitten him. He pushed to his feet, hands on his hips. "I need something more. You said…in the alley that someone erased my memory. Do you know who did?"

She nodded solemnly, "The people who separated us…when they want you erased you are erased. Like the Praetorian Guard, they leave no trace of who you were. They eviscerate your existence as if you never were."

"Why? What did you do to piss them off to the point they thought it was cool to have my memories erased and…wait how are we even still alive if those people destroy everything you are?"

"It's complicated, Damon."

"Archer," he growled. "My name is Archer and I'd appreciate it if you _used_ it. And you will answer my question."

Bonnie pursed her lips at the command. Even as she fought a smile that unbeknownst to Damon he was starting to behave like the man he couldn't remember.

"I'm waiting and you're running out time," Damon bit out.

"I was the catalyst but we both were complicit into how things have gotten to where they currently are. I'm a witch, a real one, not one who simply dresses in black or earth tones and prays to the earth using crystals. I'm the last of my line which makes my position in the hierarchy of my family very problematic.

"I'm the most gifted and potentially the most dangerous. I landed on several radars, but only one I responded to. And you, _Damon Salvatore_ absconded with their favorite witch."

* * *

 **The worst night**

* * *

"DAMON!"

Bonnie lunged out of the car or more accurately fell out of the car as she clawed her way to get to Damon. She skinned her knees and elbows, broke three nails against the gravel as she strained to reach him.

They stood, a horde of them, and watched her futile attempt, and though she knew it was futile she didn't give up. If she could reach him, grab on to him they could disappear. She just had to stretch her hand a little farther.

Her fingers brushed his ankle before he was jerked away, dragged across the ground by the hair.

"Bonnie! Get out of here. Run!" Damon tried to urge her knowing it was no use.

A man appeared in front of him garbed in black Kevlar. His hand smacked across Damon's cheek and he saw stars.

"NO!" Bonnie cried.

And her cries turned into screams as her wrist was deliberately stepped on and crushed.

"Arghhhh."

"You motherfuckers!" Damon railed and nearly frothed at the mouth. Until a needle was shoved deep in his neck and he was pumped full of vervain. He fought to remain lucid but he was going under. "…bon…"

It was a hair trigger. Fight pain with pain. Her green eyes went dark as she scowled at the one who shattered her arm.

"What are you going to do, traitor?" he spat in her face with rancid breath and laughed until his portly stomach jiggled.

Her magic rose to the surface ready to do her bidding after being suppressed for so long. What was she going to do? She'd show his ass what she was about to do!

But she was beaten to the punch. Hands came up from behind the goon who jumped at the contact, and his fright became anguish as his thick neck was twisted so far it came off like the tab on a soda can. Blood shot into the air, came down like rain drenching Bonnie in the process while the decapitated body did a three-sixty spin before crumbling to the ground.

"Have some fucking manners, will you? She is a lady. A _deceitful_ lady, but a lady after all."

The fire in her arm was transferred to her chest and head. That voice, she had spent seven years hiding from that voice. She blinked against the blood that was trickling down her forehead and dangling off the tips of her lashes. She peered at the faces staring at her in cold silence before landing on a particular one. The one she had had a bad feeling about from the moment her husband hired her. She would _never_ forget this.

She was yanked to her feet, tasting pain, tears, and her hope putrefying.

Cold fingers stroked her jaw. "Ah, Bonnie…how I missed you, my love."

* * *

 **Back to the future**

* * *

 _Demon?_

 _Savior?_

 _Human trafficker?_

"I…he…your Damon…kidnapped you?"

Bonnie shut that train of thought down rapidly. "No, I gladly went. It's just the people who had become a surrogate family didn't see it that way."

"Is this surrogate family still looking for you?"

Mutely Bonnie nodded.

Despite the bourbon he just drank his mouth was dust, exceedingly dry which made speaking hard. He didn't want to be caught in her drama. Whoever that man was in the picture she showed him, the man she married that wasn't him and in life you couldn't go back but move forward. It was on the tip of his tongue to apologize for his role in her having to tuck tail and run, but January and Oscar had drilled it in his head how he had to stay to himself if he wanted to survive.

Besides, she had _Stefan_ whom he was positive was a certified nut and more than likely would keep her one step ahead of whoever was after her. As far as he was concerned, she didn't need him.

When someone darkened your door with drama you didn't have to invite them in.

Bonnie could see that Damon was done listening to her story, could see he had made a decision.

"I think you should go," Damon said. "If people are after you, I'll just slow you down with questions, suspicion, and uncertainty, and you don't need that and I don't want it."

"I'm your wife, Damon and we need…"

"No, you're not listening!" he burst. " _This_ is my life now," Damon waved a hand around to encompass the space they were in. "A quiet, simple life, and I'm not going to let you rip that away from me. Get. Out."

"Please…"

His face changed so fast it almost shocked him but it was out, the vampiric half of him he worked to ignore and/or control. " _I said get out_."

His words were ice and sharp as daggers and hit their intended target. Quelling her need to fight back until he actually let her talk and tell him from start to finish their history, Bonnie tipped her chin up, chest rising and falling rapidly.

This was far from over.

He found himself alone. Damon blinked, spun around, and blinked again? Did she just…?

"She just disappeared?"

* * *

…

* * *

She lied there so peaceful, so innocent.

That peace and serenity was shattered when she picked up on the fact that she was no longer alone.

January woke with a start.

She pushed her thick, ink-black hair out of her sleepy green eyes, but those orbs enlarged as soon as Bonnie stepped into her line of sight.

January felt her bladder go weak. "What…"

She couldn't get the rest of her words out as a hand wrapped around her throat and slammed her into the headboard, denting the wood. January sunk her nails into flesh and it stung, but Bonnie wasn't letting go.

"What did I tell you, January? If you fucked up you'd have to deal with me and I'm not the nice one. You betrayed me, you betrayed Damon. Did you honestly think this day would never come? The day I found you both?"

The vampire kicked her legs, clawed at Bonnie's arm wondering why she seemed to be as strong as an infant against a woman who was nothing more than human flesh and bones. Of course in her rattled mind somewhere January knew it was magic that was aiding and abating Bonnie and also rage. But she was too scared shitless to focus on particulars.

"…sor-ry…I'm sorry…" January croaked.

"Yeah?" Bonnie flashed glowing white teeth in a mocking smile. "Maybe somewhere down the road, I'll be sorry for this, too."

….

 **A/N: Thoughts?**

 **Okay so I noticed a very dramatic drop in feedback once I loaded chapter 3. It was disheartening, to say the least. I don't know if people dipped out once I explained this story may share the name with the ABC show but wasn't inspired by it, or the way its constructed isn't to their liking or it's just too complicated/mysterious, and said it wasn't for them, again I'm not a mind reader, I don't know. I would like to continue this story but again I don't want to feel like I'm wasting my time. I appreciate each review; I truly do. They are my bread and butter in this fanfic industry. So please, review, guys. Thanks for reading.**


	5. Seduce to Kill

**A/N: Hello. Not sure if anyone is still checking for this story. I was making attempts to work on updates for other works, when the muse was like 'miss me boo, we want to work on this.' So who am I deny her when she's being cooperative? You'll probably have to read this story from the beginning or at least chapter 4 to jog your memory. Hope you enjoy in any case.**

* * *

 **What happened last night…**

* * *

She glanced up at the ceiling. Caught sight of the large eight-legged arachnid that scuttled across and came to a stop right above her head. She looked away.

Bonnie walked around January who hung upside down, suspended like a wireless chandelier. Over the years she had earned herself a well-known reputation. She never viewed herself as being the pious kind of witch who walked in the light, and never disrupted the balance for her own gain. She broke. She took. She killed. That was all true. Most of the time she enjoyed it; other days she compartmentalized what she had done in order to get out of bed. Her complexities were as gnarled and twisted as speaking Elvish and Gaelic combined, but she never denied there was good and bad in her.

Right here in this moment she iced over her heart, and like an addict cracked open that bottle, lit the pipe and consumed.

"I can break you like fine china. I can hurt you badly, January."

January rasped, "I kept Damon safe for you."

Mellifluous laughter bellowed from Bonnie's chest. "That's what you told yourself."

"It's the truth."

"Did you fuck him when Damon and I had been living together as husband and wife?"

"No."

"Did you ever want to?"

January tucked her top lip underneath her teeth, cried out as she pressure in her skull began to encompass her spine. "Yes!"

"Did he fall in love with you when the two of you worked closely together?"

"I…I don't know."

"Did you feel he saw you as more than a friend?"

"I suppose. Bonnie…"

She cut her off and continued with her interrogation. "Did you know he wanted to leave me?"

"I suspected." January felt bile burning its way up her esophagus. In about a minute or less she was going to make a mess on the floor. Tears dripped intermittent down her cheeks, but they had no bearing on the witch.

"Did he confide in you, tell you things that he should have been telling me?"

Her voice never once cracked as Bonnie fired off questions, but there was little hiding the fact her heart was beating rapidly. She wanted to know how far and how deep another woman had managed to worm inside her husband's heart. How much January had capitalized and benefitted from Damon's vulnerability.

At the end of the day, Bonnie needed to know if she had truly and utterly failed as a wife.

"Look, instead of asking me a million questions why don't you let me tell you about the nature of our relationship," January panted. She knew pleading for her life would be useless. Yet if she was going to die, she'd do so with dignity. Dying upside down wouldn't be very dignified after all.

Contemplation ensued. "Fine." With a lazy wave of her hand Bonnie neutralized the spell. January dropped to the floor letting out a startled yelp when she landed.

The vampire didn't chance getting to her feet. She pulled herself up on the floor, brought her knees to her chest. Bonnie watched as her lime green eyes went opaque. She was about to hear the part of Damon's life she had been shut out of.

"This is how it always goes isn't it?" January began. "The other woman is punished while the man who stepped out barely gets a slap on the wrist or worst, coddled, excuses made for his behavior, lack of self-control. I don't see myself as a bad person though I've done a lot of shitty things, but I own those shitty things because they've made me who I am.

"I take risks and I make deals with people I shouldn't. That's how I came into your life," her eyes snapped up to Bonnie, an almost defiant glint in them. "I made a deal with someone and you should know who. The same person you're running from."

Bonnie knew that much. "Get to the damn point."

"In this case I can't call myself the other woman. Did things get emotional with me and Damon? That boils down to perspective. I have my side of the story and he has his…if he could remember.

"When I met Damon of course I thought he was attractive and I tried to keep my attraction at bay. I tried to fight the way he made me feel when I was around him. I tried to keep in mind he was married. But the longer we worked side by side, and he responded to my ideas about the bar, and the long nights where it was just the two of us when the construction crew left, we became…friends. He never went into detail about what was going on in your marriage, and I never asked. Truthfully I didn't care. When you came around you were always in a bad mood, or combative, or aloof. Your mood swings, I could tell were getting to him, so whatever you weren't providing him with at home, I made _sure_ he got it from me."

On pure accident, Bonnie would argue later, she snapped January's neck. She needed a break to soothe the overwhelming waves of her rage.

Stefan had dematerialized out of spider form and decanted into his primary one and sidled next to her. "Guess you proved her point about being combative." The vicious look he got in return made him grin. "Why are you torturing yourself by listening to this bullshit instead of just _torturing_ her?"

"I need to know where things went south. I need to know how I lost my husband, Stefan."

"I can tell you that," he circled to Bonnie's left side, deliberately brushing her hand with his thumb. "You lost him the moment you married him."

That comment rolled unchallenged because Bonnie agreed with it. "Did you pay Oscar a visit?"

"I did," Stefan murmured, bored.

"And?"

"I find him infinitely more useful than this hoe right here," he nodded toward January.

"Loose end, Stefan."

"Yeah. I know."

Bonnie snapped her fingers and the bones in January's neck realigned and she woke up with a dramatic gasp. "Tell me the rest," she barked.

January was dazed and confused. Yet catching sight of Bonnie and Stefan, she gulped. It was Stefan more so than Bonnie who unnerved her the most. Those eerie eyes, his near neon-white skin with those visible blue veins surrounding his jaw and temples. It was like he had been paused in the midst of a transformation. January couldn't help it. She stared. And kept staring. Peering into those mercury circles that surrounded his pupils was like looking into the mouth of Charybdis, a whirlpool opening up in the center of the ocean outfitted with row after row of talon-sharp teeth.

"BOO!"

January flailed a little and shrieked. Stefan howled in laughter until Bonnie smacked him in the stomach.

She got things back on track. "You said that whatever Damon wasn't getting at home from me, you made sure he got from you. You claim you never fucked him, and yet…"

"What?" the question was whisper thin. Oh right, January remembered. She kept her gaze far away from Stefan. "We didn't. Things never got that far, but I started to suspect or maybe even hope that he was getting tired of your marriage, that he wanted me. He'd always seek me out, want my opinion. Some days I'd deliberately ask him if he had talked to you about whatever idea was on his mind, and he'd get the strangest look on his face like he couldn't fathom why I think he'd check with you or include you in. I knew the signs of a deteriorating relationship and you two were showing clear signs of it. But…

"As much as I wanted to be with him, I knew I was deceiving him. And you. I knew what I was really there to do. I was conflicted. I was torn because I had honest to God fallen for him and I was willing to sabotage everything for him, but something happened. I don't know if you two had talked and decided to try to fix whatever was broken, but he stopped talking to me unless it was something essential. Wouldn't laugh or joke around, flirt. He wouldn't even look me in the eye. When he managed it was like he was looking right through me. He rejected me without saying there had been something growing between us in the first place."

Bonnie's jaw opened a little. That was news to her. She and Damon had not talked beforehand about saving their marriage. Yet he had come to her one day and told her they were going out to dinner. The euphoria she experience made her feel renewed and buoyant.

Until her past caught up with her.

"So I arranged it," January said. "I was losing him and I wanted to stop it. I wanted you out of the way. I told them where you were. I didn't think they'd take Damon too but I should have known."

"Yes, you should have known." Bonnie approached the vampire with careful, measured steps whose eyes widened. "You cite Oscar as being more useful, Stefan, but there's a use for this one as well," she had not once looked away from January who began to scoot back. "You might not be seeking forgiveness because you feel your actions weren't wrong. You were merely doing what your soul was telling you to do. Well, January, I'm about to do the same."

Life never really ends even after it ends.

* * *

 **Not a pleasant morning after…**

* * *

You wake up gripping your head. You slept terribly which means you haven't slept at all. You ignore your swollen cock and the relief it needs with your fist because you simply aren't in the mood and you're terrified of where your fantasies might take you. You know if you close your eyes you'll see her face. She'll make you come though that's the last thing your mind wants, but your body refuses to take into account she can't be trusted, that you might even hate her a little bit. _It_ wants her to such an embarrassing degree that your nose and eyes sting and you know what that means.

You're not one for melodrama but you've found yourself right smack dab in the middle of it. Your life, until now, had been structured in order where you knew what would happen the next day before it arrived. Now, you have no fucking clue and you hate the uncertainty, but a small part of you feels, and you hate to even _think_ it, but a small part of you feels invigorated.

Which of course makes you feel even worse.

That woman and that freak who calls himself your brother are albatrosses.

The world you thought of as beautiful just days ago doesn't exactly appear sinister. But you know how beautiful things can trick the senses into thinking it's harmless. Nature's design is to lull, distract, bait and switch. But not today. Today you aren't interested in taking anything at face value.

You want to talk to January and Oscar. You texted them last night and they both replied they were busy and would get back to you later. Later has come and gone and you've still heard nothing from them. To anyone else it wouldn't be a big deal, but taking into account who they are, the only two people you have constant contact with, for them to blow you off something twists in your gut. Something is wrong.

Within minutes you're dressed and preparing to leave when you catch sight of that photograph.

You ignore it and burst out of your apartment and into the morning air. One subway ride later you disembark and fly to your sister's flat. You don't bother knocking as you have a key. When you open the door, nothing seems out of place, but there's a weird substance…it's heavy like you could reach out and touch it, grab it, but there's nothing really there. It's a residue of something left behind. Invisible like oxygen.

However, you do catch a scent that's becoming familiar by the day. _That_ scent sparks your anxiety and fear.

"January!"

She comes scurrying out, eyes wild. When she sees you she relaxes infinitesimally. Unfortunately it's not enough to quell the panic that's curdling your empty stomach.

Abruptly she spins and heads back to her bedroom where you find her rushing around like a dog freed from a cage. She's opening drawers, yanking out its contents and tossing them inside one of the two bags on her bed. But that's not what draws your attention. In her flurry of activity you notice she's holding her left arm close to her body. You can't see at first what's wrong since she's moving so fast, but you get in her way. She bumps into you that had you been normal you probably would have ended up on your ass on the floor.

With her still you can see that she's favoring her left arm and that it seems to be weighing her down. You reach out to touch and immediately draw your hand back. Her skin doesn't feel like skin but like ice cold porcelain. January gasps, recoils and frantically covers up her arm, but you both know it's too late for her to make up lies about how it got that way.

"What did she do to you?" you demand.

January shakes her head, skirts around you and continues to collect things to toss inside her bag. You spin her around by her shoulder and force her to look you right in the eye and speak everything that's speeding through your mind at this very moment. That the woman claiming to be your wife, who is also a powerful witch, hurt your sister because of the delusion she's built up in her head. Seconds tick off the clock and January says nothing, but you can see her forming and discarding excuses and maybe even lies, lies meant to comfort you, she'll say later because the truth always comes out.

"It's nothing, Archer. Well, no it is something but there's nothing to do about it. We need to leave. Now."

You find running unacceptable and detestable. Though you've never been challenged or been in a real fight (that you know of, because once again, there's a wealth of your history that is completely blank, utterly gone), you feel that you hardly ever took the cowards way out. Admittedly you don't know anything about witches, had never considered they might be real despite being a living piece of lore yourself, but deep inside there's an innate part of you that believes you can take the witch out. You realize, in that moment, you are her biggest weakness. She wouldn't hurt you. She wants you too badly to risk harming you more than that initial squabble between the pair of you. You have an advantage. Exploit it.

"We leave and then what?" you ask. "She finds us and the cycle starts all over again, or worse she kills you and kidnaps me." The idea of a woman half your size kidnapping you—wait.

Between the two pulses of thought an image appears. You're on the ground—no. You're being _dragged_ across rocks and stuffed into a trunk just big enough for you to fit, but hardly leaving you any room to actually move. You blink and it's gone and now you're left with even more questions. But first things first. Your sister.

"You don't understand, Archer—,"

"Well I would if someone would explain shit to me. Stop lying to me, if you are lying, and tell me the truth."

You've never seen January's eyes look this sad and defeated before. Bloodshot, yes. Half-lidded with lust towards one of her lovers, yes. This, what she's displaying, no. You're not sure how to digest it and you grapple for a nanosecond if you actually want to hear her say whatever is on the tip of her tongue to say. If you are married, if you have a brother and not a sister, and you were made in 1864, and your name is Damon Salvatore, what are you going to do with that? You know yourself as Archer. You _are_ Archer. Why should anyone come in and take that away from you?

January licks her dry and cracked lips. You notice, belatedly, that she looks half starved, but her thirst is the last thing on her mind. Running is. Running is taking precedence over feeding.

"I…" her voice cracks and she swallows to try again, "I've never lied to you about the danger we're in. Bonnie is part of that danger. Staying away from her is the only way you're going to live. That's always been true."

"So…she is…my wife?"

"Yes."

"I loved her so much that I asked her to marry me?"

"Yes, Da—mon."

"You're not my sister?" You don't mean to form it as a question, but there it is.

"No," January shakes her head.

Objects in the background being to blur as you focus solely on the woman in front of you. Heat rises and bottles beneath your skin and if anyone looked carefully they would see it leaving your pores as steam. You don't recall a time you've ever been this pissed. "You better start telling me the truth right fucking now, January, if that's even your real name."

"I-I'll tell you everything if you just promise me…promise you will leave here, alone, and live. I just want you to live, Ar—Damon because I love you."

Half an hour later you leave the building, walk away from who you thought was your genuine and biological sister. Lies to protect. Lies to conceal. At the end of the day, it's just lies.

You're not quite sure what to do. Anyone in your shoes might expect the world to look drastically different, altered in some conspicuous way like humans suddenly developing gills or the sun now being purple. But everything is blissfully and annoyingly the same. It doesn't seem fair. Unfortunately that's life and how the dealer dealt the cards. All you can think about is that you've been turned inside out. Again.

…

Back inside January's apartment, she had gone completely still. There was a faint smile on her face because finally it had come to an end.

(Technically it was the continuance of a story that's been in motion for almost a decade).

Faintly January heard this:

"I can't really kill you since you did keep Damon safe from our common enemy. However…you're a liability. A loose end. One I can't afford not to tie up. If they find you they'll be one step closer to finding me. I would say this isn't personal, but we both know that it is."

You see, the moment January purged, disclosed her part in this subterfuge, the thread tied itself in a nice bow. Unfortunately for January the thread had been wrapped around her neck. The second Damon walked away from her, her head fell from her shoulders with a splat. Her body followed with a thump.

Damon had no idea that the whole time he had been talking to her, she had been long past dead, bound by magic long enough to give a final will and testament.

…

It'll be a few days before Damon discovered what happened to the person he knew as his sister.

* * *

 **The he is that he doesn't know he is**

* * *

Villeneuve Hotel, or The V as it is referred to by locals, was six-star worthy. It was a mansion rather than a contemporarily designed building. The rooms varied from singles, double and luxury suites boasting the usual amenities, however every room came with its own personal valet. There were thirty-three rooms total offering views of the Cordovan Sea or the bustling promenade with a Bronze Age water fountain at its center. The hotel stayed booked year round; there was even a wait list.

Outside theater, infinity pool and adjacent grotto, sauna, and exercise center, The V had every indulgence for a comfortable and memorable bourgeois stay.

It was your lovely powers of persuasion you utilized on front office management, disarming their strict booking policies leading them to bump someone from their reservation they had made months, maybe even a year in advance. You are given a key to suite number six located on the main level. You also make a request for dinner to be brought and arranged with the expressed desire to titillate; you also order a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of Champagne Krug Clos d'Ambonnay 1995 which you have no intentions of ever paying for. You grab a server and stuff a tiny vial into his hand and whisper to add that to the champagne.

Poison would be beneath you, but you're not exactly confident you could kill faster with your fangs. Your hands, as far as you're concerned are virgins when it comes to taking life. You've never broken a neck or torn out a heart. You don't think you want to start tonight. This, poison, you feel will be more merciful. Quick and painless. That is what the poisoner you bought it from told you in any case.

While the hospitality staff scurries to carry out your entreaties, you meander down the grey and white marble corridor admiring the porcelain filigree and statutes that line the tomb silent halls. You stroll by cherubs and angels and the occasional forked tongue devil, satyrs, and nymphs. Their pupil-less eyes see nothing but they give the distinct impression they remember everything. If this place is so popular it seems conspicuously vacant. You can barely hear the sounds of life coming from the rooms you pass, but you catch the occasional flutter of conversation, easily distinguishing between the voices belonging to a guest or a television program. You turn a corner that will dump you on the posterior side of the hotel.

Your feet hit latticed herringbone brick while your nose is assaulted with the strong stench of chlorine. The pool is just down the steps of the large veranda that spans the entire length of the massive thirty thousand square foot structure. There are seating areas here and there but there is no one partaking of the tufted chairs and chaise loungers, or the bar. You aren't here by yourself though. There is someone standing near the stone bannister overlooking the grounds.

The view of her from the back is just as good as the view from the front. She is not silhouetted by the fading sunlight, the coming twilight, or even faint moonlight. But she does appear as if she can command all three. She is there dressed surprisingly in a tight, black sleeveless top tucked into a pair of black high waist pants that flare so voluminously at the bottom they cover her entire feet. You hadn't given much thought to what she might don, but judging off the last few encounters you vaguely suspected she'd be in another dress.

She turns towards you. Her viridian irises are outlined in black kohl and she's left her lips bare save for clear lip gloss. Her cheeks and the arch beneath her eyebrows have been dusted with an iridescent gold highlight, but apart from that, her look is simple and yet so painfully elegant. You swallow and remember what she's done to your sister, and what she's trying to take away from you, what she's trying to impose on you.

"Thank you for meeting me," you say after a beat of silence. Then your mind goes blank because you aren't sure what to say next, but you know you have to keep talking, keep her out here long enough for the staff to set up the room. "You look nice."

She smiles at the fact your cheeks are heating and turning rosy. You curse because you're a gotdamn vampire and vampires shouldn't blush.

"I can say your invitation surprised me."

"Oh?"

"Our last few encounters haven't gone well. I'm sure you've talked to your… _sister_ since then."

There's little mistaking her disgust when she forced herself to say the word 'sister', and yet it causes a reaction in you. A bad one. The veins under your eyes protrude. You slam them closed and breathe in and out until you're sure you won't take her damn head off for having the balls to bring up January.

"Damon…"

Despite that not being your name (though by now you know it is, still you refuse to accept it), you open your eyes and stare. And while your eyes had been closed Bonnie has come closer. She was still some distance away, but she is closer. Close enough for you to smell the various fragrances of her body: honey in her hair, coconut on her arms, and sandalwood behind her ears and the center of her chest. She smells like a woman who believes in cuddling in front of a fire or swimming naked in the ocean. Don't think about her naked.

You peek at her breasts. You can't help yourself. She's not wearing a bra nor does she really need it. Her breasts rest low on her chest, but being young and firm, they appear perky. Her nipples bead into tight knots the longer you stare.

"Damon," the cadence of her voice has changed. Deeper, more resonant than before. You wonder, fleetingly, if that's how she sounds right before or after she's been fucked. Your dick gets hard and you stifle your grimace. "I'm not here for us to fight. I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to talk."

"I want the same thing."

Relief pours out of her.

"I want to know how we met…I want to know…everything." A part of you does mean that, however, the larger part of you wants something entirely different.

"I can tell you some preliminary things but to give you the full story, I'm sorry, we don't have a lot of time. I told you that people are looking for me. Every second I stay in a place is one second I don't have to move somewhere else."

"Why are you running? What did you do? Did you kill someone?"

You hear a guest splash in the pool. Both of you look toward the sound. This is not the setting to have this conversation.

"Look, I know you have reservations about me and this situation but…does any part of you believe what January told you?" Bonnie now stands less than two feet away.

You resist the urge to move back. "Let's say I'm willing to be…open-minded. She explained to me the aftermath but not what happened before, specifically about our…marriage," the word almost gets lodged in your throat. "But I guess she wouldn't have those details. I need you to fill in the blanks."

"All right. I will but first we need to go."

" _No_." That word and the way you speak it is a gavel coming down on a sounding block.

Bonnie's nostrils flare and for a second you feel something icy and sharp whip across your skin.

You soften your approach, add a smile. "I mean, we can leave later. I booked a room for us, after all. We shouldn't let it go to waste."

She nibbles her bottom lip, contemplating. For the first time since meeting or reuniting she looks uncertain. Will she be walking into a trap? Or are you expecting more than just having a talk? Will she deny you if you press for more? Those, you believe, are her thoughts. She's not sure she can trust you. Her instincts are speaking but her heart is overriding common sense. Good.

Just as you think you've won this round of subterfuge, the uncertainty vanishes, or rather crumbles and dies, and she's less than a foot away. Your muscles have gone stiff, not because the synapses in your brain ordered them to. It's like they've been besieged and is following the orders of the new officer in command.

"I know you have no reason to trust me, and I have no reason to trust you," she says, the underlying warning very clear in her tone, "but if you've asked me here under false pretenses, husband or not I _will_ defend myself."

Here, for the first time, is where you wish you could say what Damon would say. But you have no idea what he would say to diffuse the situation that could very well run away from you. You only know what Archer would say. Archer who is so meek and mild, lonely and desperate for more.

"I understand. Believe me, Bonnie. We want the same thing. Resolution. But put yourself in my shoes for a second. If someone came to you and told you your entire life is a lie and they claim you're married to them, would you just jump in the car and go off with that person? No. You'd want answers and proof. You've given me a photo of us but you've also painted a very vague picture. You're running from someone you obviously can't stop, but if you want me to uproot my life that could end just by being associated with you, you're gonna have to forgive me for not being accommodating."

"I get it. I know what I'm asking for is insane and a lot. And I'm sorry for this, I really am. But why would I choose you of all people to try to get one over on? What sense would it make? You're not rich and I'm not a gold digger. I'm not doing this because I'm lonely or want attention. If you'll listen I'll tell you as much as I can. You cut me off and threw me out of your apartment two days ago. You asked me here but if you're going to do more of the same, then you're just wasting my time and giving me more of a reason to handle things in a not-so-nice way. So, please, give me the benefit of the doubt and just listen."

"All right," you acquiesce. "I'll listen."

Your muscles defrost for lack of a better word. Bonnie studies your face, stares for a very long time right in your eyes, but it's not uncomfortable. You hold her gaze and nearly at the same time the two of you sigh.

Bonnie skirts around you, stops, and when she turns her right arm is extended. You go to her, take her hand, and your scalp tingles. It is a tingle that gives you pause. It is awareness and consciousness, and something that punches you in the gut. You've felt like this before. You falter.

Without realizing, you're staring at her the whole time you lead the way to suite number six. The vain side of you is pleased she's unable to look away either. You unlock the door and it takes a moment for you to adjust and remember exactly why you're here. The room is spectacular and an architectural marvel, but it barely registers. Not so much as the tableau set up in the center of the room.

Bonnie kisses your hand before letting go. You refuse to say the spot her lips touched burns, but yeah its burning. And it spreads. Fast. You hunch the shoulder that's being affected hoping that'll stop it.

The soft tap of her heels competes with the flicker of candlelight and the fire in the grate. Her body sways like tall grass as she glides across the parquet flooring. You shut and lock the door, but never take your sight off her.

You join her at the table set for two where she fingers a sterling silver butter knife with the hotel's emblem engraved on the hilt.

"This is a nice room," she comments. "Romantic."

You say nothing. Merely swerve around her, close enough to brush against her in what could be a casual touch, but you're too close for it to be casual. You pull out the chair and motion for her to take a seat. She accepts and flicks those overly observant orbs at you probably still wondering what game you're really playing at. Because, let's be real. This could have happened at your apartment. She knows that your walls are still very much intact as they should be. A picture is hardly proof of an entire life you shared with this woman. January could have been coerced or threatened to corroborate. Bonnie's asked you to listen and despite your curiosity, you can't afford to let this charade go on any longer. The only thing you know for certain is…

Bonnie Bennett won't be leaving this place alive.

 **A/N: Okay so to quickly recap to clear up anything that might have been confusing. Bonnie had killed January but did a spell that kept her alive long enough to tell Damon the truth. Once she fulfilled that obligation, her head fell off. Damon isn't aware that January's dead, so he's more or less acting off the fact that Bonnie hurt/and or intimidated her. I would love to go into an explanation on why Damon wants to kill Bonnie, but I will leave that up to your interpretation. Thank you guys for reading. Please, please review.**


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